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Olympian Leryn Franco has become an online favorite for much more than her javelin skills.

Javelin thrower Leryn Franco placed 51st in the 2008 Olympics, yet she finished only behind Michael Phelps among Yahoo! searches for Olympic athletes during the Games. 

It's clear that the 30-year-old from Paraguay is popular for more than just her javelin-throwing technique.

A model and beauty pageant contestant, Franco has participated in the Miss Bikini Universe pageant, released her own calendar, and was the runner-up to Miss Universo Paraguay in 2006. She has brought a bit of glam to her sport as well, posing in heels with her javelin for a photo shoot and wearing earrings with bling during competition. 

Slideshow: Olympic hotties: World’s most alluring athletes

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Franco has fared far better on the magazine and Internet hot lists than in international javelin competitions. She appeared in the 2011 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and was most recently ranked No. 64 on AskMen.com’s “Top 99 Women” of 2012. She also made Maxim's "Sexiest Women of the Olympics'' list and has an endorsement contract with Nike.  

"My career is media,” she told Spanish-language news agency Efe. “One can turn on the TV or look at a magazine and see me."

While she has gained fame for her pursuits away from javelin, she has shown improvement since Beijing, throwing a personal-best 55.66 meters at a meet in Buenos Aires last year. However, that is still far short of the current world record of 72.28 held by gold medal favorite Barbora Špotáková of the Czech Republic. Franco is not expected to be a medal contender in London, but the fact that she is back in the Olympics is an accomplishment she is savoring.

 "To qualify for London, the Olympics, is already a medal," she told Efe.

More from TODAY in London:

• Gold star: Medalist Shawn Johnson joins TODAY.com Olympic team
• Team USA flag-bearer dreams of owning a pig
• Will 'drunk' controversy distract U.S. women's soccer team?
• Phelps on his final Olympics: 'I have a job to finish here'

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Ariane Friedrich of Germany celebrates after winning the women's high jump during the IAAF World Challenge ISTAF 2010 at the Olympic Stadium on August 22, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

MAINZ, Germany – Ariane Friedrich, a 28-year-old German high-jumper currently training for the 2012 London Games, is taking on more than one Olympic-size challenge: she is also publicly challenging an alleged stalker. The athlete from Frankfurt says that she recently received an email with a sexually explicit photo from a stalker.

In what some see as a controversial move, she chose to out the stalker on Facebook –- posting his full name, excerpts from the email he sent her and his hometown.

“It’s time to act, it’s time to defend myself. And that’s what I’m doing. No more and no less,” Friedrich wrote on her Facebook page on Saturday. 

In Germany, where strict online data protection laws exist, Friedrich's decision to “name and shame” her alleged stalker is receiving broad attention and has triggered a heated debate about the moral and legal implications of the online allegations. 

Fears of a Web mob
Friedrich, who is not just an athlete, but also a police officer, also filed a legal complaint against her offender, according to German media reports.

While the move has triggered lots of positive responses from her fans on her Facebook page, with posts calling her “courageous,” there was also growing criticism.

“As much as I can understand your anger about the stalker, you as a police officer should not just pillory somebody on the Internet,” one person wrote on Friedrich’s Facebook page. 

Gero Breloer / AP

Germany's Ariane Friedrich reacts in the women's high jump final during the World Athletics Championships in Berlin in this August 2009 file photo.

“The reaction of Mrs. Friedrich is of course understandable, but she reacted too fast,” Dr. Thilo Weichert, a data privacy law expert in Kiel, Germany, told NBC News.
 
”It needs to be checked first, if the named person is really the correct one. Anybody can use a wrong name on Facebook,” Weichert said.

On Monday, many of the critical Facebook posts referenced a recent incident in which the equivalent of a lynch mob turned against a 17-year-old in the northern German city of Emden after police had arrested him for questioning in the murder of an 11-year-old girl.

The teen was later declared innocent and released, but the social media storm led to a gathering of an angry crowd in front of the police station. Afterward the boy and his family felt so harassed that they moved to an undisclosed location.

Don’t need the distraction
Friedrich’s coaches aren’t exactly welcoming the move. On Saturday, Guenter Eisinger, her coach and manager, tried to downplay the incident, saying he is concerned that the growing media attention will negatively affect her preparations for the Summer Games.

“The issue has nothing to do with the public,” Eisinger told German news agency dpa on Saturday. “We can do without any stress factors.”