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February 05, 2006

The SuperBowl football championship saw plenty of attention in the days before the Feb. 5 contest in Detroit, Mich., between the Seattle Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers. And intrepid readers noted that there’s even a Latvian connection to one of the biggest media events of the year. It seems Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been dating Latvian-American professional golfer Natalie Gulbis.

The relationship has been noted by a number of sports writers, including the Associated Press’ Alan Robinson, whose Feb. 4 story appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, among other newspapers.

Only they know how serious their relationship is, but we had to chuckle upon reading one football fan’s warning to Roethlisberger, posted on the quarterback’s blog back in July: “Don’t get too distracted, man. Girls can be very troublesome.”

Fans of Gulbis, meanwhile, probably already know from reading her official Web site that her 2006 swimwear calendar is available. The site also lists several athletes she admires. Guess who’s first in her list? That’s right—a certain quarterback from Pittsburgh.

And as long as we’re focusing on celebrity pairings, we wondered what ever happened to singer Ricky Martin and Latvia-born model Inese Misāne, often appearing in the press as Ines Misan. They were an item in 2001, back when questions were being raised about Martin’s sexuality. But Misāne moved on.

In 2004, for example, the New York Post reported “leggy Latvian model” Misāne was dating actor Benicio del Toro. The paper also noted she had been linked to Sean Penn, Richard Gere and Val Kilmer.

Besides modeling, Misāne has had a minor career in film and video. Misāne was seen in a pair of Prāta Vētra videos in 1999 and 2000 (she was the woman on the bicycle in the clip for “Weekends Are Not My Happy Days” and the woman in the car in “Under My Wing,” according to the band’s Web site). In 1994, she played the role of Scarlett Rider in the little-known (and apparently best forgotten) film Inside the Goldmine.

— Andris Straumanis