Pole vaulting gets her lots of Internet looks, not all by sports fans

When she competes, Allison Stokke's entire focus is the path in front of her, a narrow stretch of crushed rock leading to a bar balancing between stanchions that soar toward the sky. And when she dashes down that runway, her hands grasping a 13-foot pole that will propel her, head over heels, she doesn't even notice the explosion of flashes from hundreds of cameras focused on her.

Stokke, who will graduate soon from Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, is a straight-A student and is among the best pole vaulters her age in the country, having earned a track and field scholarship to UC Berkeley.

But intelligence and athletic ability aren't what made her the most-watched athlete at the state high school track and field championships in Sacramento on Friday.

It was the Internet.

Stokke happens to be physically attractive, with shiny dark hair; flawless olive-colored skin; a wide, bright smile; and the toned 5-foot-7 frame of a well-trained athlete -- and that's why her name has become among the most searched on the Internet, making her a flashpoint for debate about 1st Amendment rights and who can post what about whom in cyberspace.

One day she was just another accomplished high school athlete. The next, she was the topic of media reports from London, Spain and Italy; her YouTube video got nearly 200,000 views; and photos of her were posted on college message boards around the country and linked to by bloggers around the world.

Keith Richmond, chief executive of Break.com, has a term he uses for the instantly famous: "e-lebrities." His site bills itself as an "entertainment channel for guys fueled by user-created media."

"It's amazing how quickly someone can go from obscurity to fame," Richmond said. "Most of the time those becoming e-lebrities are seeking the publicity. But sometimes it's accidental."

Athletic and attractive typically make a titillating combination. Tennis star Anna Kournikova's beauty made her an Internet champion, yet she never won a major tournament singles title in a pro career that spanned from 1995 to 2003.

Stokke, 18, said she became aware of her popularity a few weeks ago, when she started receiving e-mails from friends across the country who had seen photos of her on various websites, some in displays clearly designed to be sexually suggestive.

She hadn't posed for the pictures, either. Most of them show Stokke at competitions wearing the type of outfits favored by many of the participants.