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