Amanda Beard, swimmer, poses for Playboy
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/colum...ene&id=2901083

I love this quote from her in Playboy: "As someone with a healthy lifestyle, I am trying to send a positive message that different body types are sexy."

I heard her on Mike and Mike, and she said she had to go to her family and her father before making the decision, and they all said "That's wonderful!"

I can't imagine being thrilled about having my daughter go nude and have half a million guys jack off to her. Or maybe I'm weird that way.

Yeah, she goes from the virginal fourteen year old clutching her teddy bear at the olympics to being the Speedo pinup girl.

She's on record as saying that all this stuff is strictly a business matter for her. As she ages out of swimming she's got to reinvent herself. So far it's working...she's worth millions.

We'll have to check with Non Seq to see if that's the case.

That's not the Beard I remember. Goat has a new favorite.

The article, not the one with Beard naked but the one discussing her decision, is great:

"
Yes, I saw Amanda Beard naked. It's not like I had any choice. She practically threw herself at me.


http://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2007..._cover_195.jpg AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian
Amanda Beard on the cover of the July 2007 issue of Playboy.




All I had to do was log on to Playboy.com, then click on the July issue preview, then click through 16 pages before I could order the digital version, then enter my e-mail address, home address, credit card number, card expiration date, card secret code, and -- this was odd -- bust size. Then I had to approve the $4.99 charge, download a digital player, download the magazine, then click, page by page, to Page 112, where "The World's Sexiest Athlete" was definitely in her birthday suit.


I don't know if you've seen the eight-page spread (that's probably the wrong word, isn't it?) of Beard, but the photos have created quite a buzz. There's one of her naked underwater. There's a few of her naked in a shallow pool of water. There's one of her naked on a boulder. There's another one of her naked in the sand. Just about every geological surface is covered. The only thing not covered is Beard.


There seem to be three schools of thought on Beard's decision to bare all".

Here is one of the truest statements ever printed:

"What will be most interesting is the reaction in the swimming community and of the people I swim against," she says in Playboy.


I've known a couple of world- and national-class swimmers. Generally speaking -- and I mean this is in a good way -- they're sort of nuts. They train hard. They swim hard. And when it's all done, they tend to party hard. So I'm not expecting a huge backlash from her peers.

Why does her face look so weird? That doesn't even look like her.

And why does she say she wanted to do it to show people with all different body types are sexy. What? Has that been a problem for her? Nobody thinks her body type is sexy?

I think her jawline is probably the oddest part about her body.

She has a jawline? Huh, I didn't notice.

Well I looked up the photos and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say she's referring to the fact that she's not nearly as, um, endowed as the standard playboy model.

Or to put it in nicer terms, I think she's referring to the fact that you can take a healthful, athletic approach to sexy instead of the plastic, crash-diet approach to sexy.

Of course, you could also take the I-keep-my-clothes-on approach to sexy, but that's not as much fun.

BG, you bought a playboy online subscription?