A weekly newspaper persuaded its city’s most recent Olympic gold medallist to have her face painted in Union Jack colours for a special London 2012 edition.
The Bath Chronicle featured bob skeleton star Amy Williams, who won Britain’s only gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics, on its striking front page for this week’s edition, which focuses on the city’s involvement in the Games.
Amy, who recently retired from her sport, spent more than an hour having her face painted by the Chronicle’s promotions executive Donna Symonds – who was in the same year as her at the city’s Hayesfield School.
The idea for the face-painting came from editor Lynne Fernquest, while much of the writing and design was done by deputy sports editor Neil Rose.
Deputy editor Paul Wiltshire said: “We were keen to find a really eye-catching image for the front page – and we think we’ve achieved it. Amy was a good sport and we’re confident readers are going to love the superb pages packed with well-written and well-illustrated content.”
The paper features the 36 sportsmen and women based in Bath who will be competing in the extravaganza, including Great Britain’s youngest swimmer, 16-year-old Siobhan-Marie O’Connor, and athletics captain, hurdler Dai Greene.
Special bills have also been produced in red, white and blue to mark the Olympics.
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Looks brilliant. I will steal that idea forthwith……
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This is a great cover shot which is unfortunately irrevocably ruined by the “Free pizza” plug on the gold medal. What a real shame.
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Did Lord Seb Coe sanction putting the Olympic rings fairground-style around the letter ‘l’ in Chronicle.
Nice front though.
Slightly odd calling Amy Williams ‘model’
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It’s a great front page and it’s right that those involved in its production are mentioned in the tale. All except the photographer, who, in technical lighting terms, pulled off a great image but got no recognition. Typical.
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Striking front page. Is it just me or has the Olympics brought out the best in our newspapers, both local, regional and national? Most of the coverage of the torch relays was fantastic and coverage of the Games itself, particularly in The Times, has been a brilliant indication of why paper is still relevant in our digital age. Their souvenir posters are great.
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