Gymnast Honours Hollywood Star

They may not be the most conventional pair seeking Olympic glory. But a former Playboy centrefold and a pizza waitress from Cincinnati are hoping to emulate such luminaries as Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci.

Today, Pamela Anderson will make a strange kind of sporting history by flying to Athens to cheer on potential gold medal winner Mohini Bhardwaj, whose presence at the Games she has made possible.

The US gymnast and the woman she unashamedly calls her mentor have become huge news in America ahead of this year's event. After hearing that Bhardwaj's quest to reach Greece was threatened by a lack of funds, the former Baywatch star promptly wrote her a cheque for $20,000 (£11,000).

The odd couple may well boost TV audiences. Gymnastics is already one of the more popular sports at the Games - but the female-dominated viewing figures are likely to include more males than usual when Anderson steps off her private plane to take her limousine to the Olympic Indoor Hall, where Bhardwaj has tickets for her to see the first day of the 2004 competition.

Until a few months ago Bhardwaj, 25, the daughter of an Indian father and Russian-Indian mother, was a failed gymnast working in a Los Angeles pizza restaurant to fund her studies at the University of California.

Having blown one chance at reaching the top by smoking and drinking too much, the woman whose first name means 'illusion' decided to make a last stab at reviving her career. 'The mother of a friend from my LA gym was a neighbour of Pam's and tried to sell her a 50-cent raffle ticket to help me get to the US national championships. But Pam, being a former gymnast, wanted to know more about me,' recalled Bhardwaj.

The pair met and when Anderson heard how Bhardwaj came close to making the 1996 Olympic team but retired hurt, she gave her $20,000 to cut her debts and for training costs.

They have since become friends, with more in common than initial appearances would suggest. Anderson, too, was a gymnast in her youth whose prowess earned her the nickname 'rubber band'. They are both vegetarian: Anderson for health reasons, Bhardwaj because she was raised a Hindu. When the gymnast competed at the US Olympic trials last June, the actress turned up with her son Brandon and held aloft a homemade 'Go Mo' poster.

'What we do is similar', says Bhardwaj. 'I'm not in Playboy, but it's showbusiness, entertainment. It's hard work and discipline. She has sent me a huge bouquet of flowers to wish me luck and auctioned a car to raise money for me. She is coming because she's my mentor, has funded this whole thing. I decided to have her here because she's a part of everything.'

Brian Eaton, the US gymnastics team spokesman, said Bhardwaj's teammates thought Anderson's patronage 'was cool'. 'They know that doing elite sport takes a lot of time, dedication and finance, and if you're going to do it, you can't be holding down two jobs at the same time.'

He said the women had captured the imagination of the American public: 'This chance meeting produced a remarkable connection between Mo and Pam and has turned into a feelgood story that people can follow.'