
Athletes devote their lives to fully unleashing the potential of their bodies and pushing the limits of how far they can go every single day. But what happens when top-performing athletes take something as mundane as shaving seriously? We’re not sure if this is something normal people even wonder about, but Japanese electronics maker Philips already has the answer for us.
To promote of its electric shavers, Philips came up with the “Extreme Shaving Tournament” featuring a number of top athletes from Japan. And guess what? The top shaver gets to shave in outer space!
- Extreme Shaving
Philips ran the creative campaign to celebrate the release of its flagship electric shaver model “9ooo series”. On September 19, three Extreme Shaving videos were released, each featuring a different athlete. By watching them online, viewers can vote for their favorite and the winner will get to go to outer space to shave with Philips’ purportedly remarkable shaver.
- The challengers
The first BMX athlete in Japan – Kotaro Tanaka
Winner of the 2013 Slacklining World Championship – Toru Osugi
Award recipient at the International Aerobic Gymnastic Championship – Yuta Uematsu
- The voting process
The three athletes are shown performing their respective sports while shaving – hence the ‘extreme shaving’ – and there will be 3 rounds of voting. The first round will end on October 24, with one of the three aforementioned athletes going on to the finals. From October 31 to December 5, another three athletes’ videos will be uploaded and again the winner of this round will go on to the final to battle it out.
- It’s all about the shaver!
While the athletes’ performances are already spectacular, let us take a second to also appreciate the electric shavers here. While this writer has never used one before in her life, she does find it genuinely fascinating that the shavers are precise and safe enough to use in this way without any of the athletes slicing their faces off!
By the way, my personal favorite is aerobic gymnast Yuta Uematsu’s video. I don’t think I have ever seen someone so elegant, graceful and at the same time exuding manliness all while prancing around and shaving at the same time. Who will you vote for?
Source/video: Philips, YouTube
▼ Kotaro Tanaka
▼ Toru Osugi
▼ Yuta Uematsu
[ Read in Japanese ]

When it comes to blending art and sport, Japanese athletes represent
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