Superfast Bolt to front Virgin Media broadband ads

As well as taking home two gold medals for his record-breaking 100m and 200m sprint in the current Beijing Olympics, Jamaican runner Usain Bolt will be looking forward to a pretty packet as Virgin Media have snapped him up for their latest ad campaign.

The world’s fastest man, Bolt is to become the face of Virgin Media’s superfast broadband service. The company, which is due to launch an ultra-fast 50Mbps broadband service which it claims is almost double the speed of those of rival ISPs, are considering calling the new product “Boltband”.

Ashley Stockwell, head of Virgin Media’s marketing operation said “Our new 50Mb service will deliver even faster lightning broadband speeds, which is why we feel that Usain will be the perfect ambassador for our campaign.”

After his amazing 100m victory, Bolt, aged 22, went on to smash the 200m world record yesterday in a nail-biting race that saw the second and third-place runners disqualified. He made the sprint in just 19.30 seconds, 0.02 seconds faster than the American Michael Johnson’s word record that had stood since the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Virgin Media has used a number of celebrities in the past to promote its products and services. Kill Bill actress Uma Thurman fronted its £20 million campaign to rebrand NTL as Virgin Media, while Samuel L. Jackson and Ruby Wax have also appeared in adverts for the company.

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