CYBERSPACE — The original Olympians competed in the nude, so it’s probably only appropriate that during 2008’s Olympics, the focus of the cybersphere is not on athletic achievement but on what those remarkable athletes are hiding under their uniforms. Photos of female Olympians in the raw are beginning to clutter the Web in record numbers.Although nude athletic supporters seem to get fired up every time an Olympic year rolls around, American swimmer and multiple gold medalist Amanda Beard fanned the flames this year by appearing au naturel in an advertisement for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ campaign to end the fur trade. The four-time Olympian appeared nude in Playboy in July 2007.
Of course, Beard’s buff achievement — and the German Olympic team’s performance — is somewhat overshadowed by the bare representations of German athletes that appeared on alternate covers of the German edition of Playboy in August. Hockey player Katharina Scholz, sailor Petra Niemann, judo competitor Romy Tarangul and canoeist Nicole Reinhardt disrobed for the momentous occasion, which has caused no end of talk in the Fatherland.
And they’re hardly alone in the naked-in-Playboy camp. Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina appeared in the Russian edition of the magazine in 1996, shortly after winning gold in Atlanta. Figure skater Maria Butyrskaya appeared on the Russian pages two years later, shortly after placing fourth at the ’98 Winter Games.
Figure skater Katarina Witt went both of her countrywomen one better by helping to make the December 1998 American issue of Playboy the second sold-out issue ever. (The first to sell out was the inaugural issue featuring Marilyn Monroe.) Although Witt was a winner for Playboy, she didn’t fare as well at the Olympics, placing at best fourth in both the 1998 and 2002 Winter Games.
Other female Olympians who have graced the pages of the august men’s magazine include high jumper Amy Acuff, swimmer Haley Cope, triple-jumper Ineta Radeviča, sprinter Zhanna Pintusevich-Block and pole vaulter Fanni Juhasz.
Sorry, ladies: Evidently the men aren’t as unabashed about their anatomy. Decathlete Bruce Jenner, who took the gold in his event in 1976, is the only male Olympian known to have appeared in Playgirl, the magazine for the distaff side — and he appeared fully clothed in 1982. (These days Jenner probably is better known as the stepfather of celebutante Kim Kardashian.)
