Groningen, Oct 20: Female Dutch athletes are posing nude on a website to fund training abroad during the winter after cuts in subsidies left them out in the cold.
A group of young Dutch sportswomen have come up with an innovative way for raising money to enhance their future careers by stripping for a pay-per-view website. Subsidies to the Royal Dutch Athletics Union were cut heavily this year giving athletes, many of them still students, a hard time to scrape together money to finance their ambitions. Several athletes, a trainer and a model photographer joined together to create a website displaying the sportswomen at their best - in their full glory. Some 250 photos of six women are shown on www.sportmeiden.nl, which includes a section free of charge of photos. But full access to the website costs 80 eurocents ($0.943) a minute. Junior Dutch champion in the 800-metres run, Majken van Reeken is one of the athletes that took part in the project. Majken aspires to attend winter training in Portugal, but lacked the financial means.


"I train six times a week and I have no time for a job to earn the money needed," van Reeken said. Dutch athletes enjoy travelling to Spain, France, Portugal, South Africa or the Canary Islands to prepare for the new season in the sun.


The Netherlands' 23-year old high jump champion, Frenke Bolt, also features on the site. Bolt believes the project is unique and has proven to be successful to date.


"Because I study I don't make a lot of money of course, so you spend a lot of time and money for your sport, but you don't get any back. So this is kind of a different way to make a bit of money, but it seems to work really well," said Bolt.


Foundes of the site, which has been visited about one million times a day, said there was enough interest to add new photos each week. Some male athletes have begun to show interest in taking part in the project. Those looking for pornographic pictures, however, may be disappointed.


A note at the bottom of the homepage of the site says that anyone looking for more than artistic nudity should leave.


"It is an incentive to the Dutch Royal Athletes Union and the government that when they cut subsidies in this way, everybody will have to pose nude in order to finance their sports," said co- founder of the site, trainer Joop Tervoort. The site has also be translated into English: Dutchsportgirls.com


Bureau Report