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SOCHI, Russia (AP) - Memo to Kate Moss: Switzerland's new gold medalist halfpipe snowboarder likes you.
Iouri Podladtchikov mentioned the model and actress multiple times during a news conference Wednesday, one day after beating American Shaun White and 10 others in the halfpipe finals at the Sochi Games.
We could paraphrase, but better to let him bring her up repeatedly as he describes his life ambitions, his attitude toward social media and the origin of his YOLO (you only live once) flip:
_ "I don't want to be on the cover of Vogue. I am big into photography. It is a big dream to take a photo of Kate Moss. But not to be on the cover. I am not good-looking enough for that."
_ "I tweet all my own tweets, I Instagram what I feel. I don't care about having 1 million followers. If I have one person I look up to and respect who follows me, that means more to me than 1 million followers. But Kate Moss does not have Twitter." (Kate Moss famously dislikes social networks, while Podladtchikov can be followed on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/iouriamazingand Instagram here: http://instagram.com/iouripodladtchikov)
_ "The original story of the YOLO trick was that I was trying to impress a girl. Another funny thing is that she asked me why didn't I call the trick after her. I mean ... what do you have to do to impress a girl? If she was Kate Moss I would have named it after her."
_ By Oskar Garcia _ Twitter http://twitter.com/oskargarcia
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Associated Press reporters are filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games. Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: http://apne.ws/1c3WMiu
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