Life & Style | People
Gorgeous women in sport
If there's one thing men love more than sport, it's watching the gorgeous women in it, says Nitin Nair.
- By Nitin Nair, Senior Features Writer
- Published: 23:25 August 4, 2008
- Yelena Isinbayeva has 22 world records to her credit.
- Image Credit: Supplied Picture
Hugh Hefner may be the luckiest man alive, but don't say that to the guy who gets to referee a women's beach volleyball gig featuring teams from Brazil and Italy during the Olympics in Beijing this month.
If there's one thing men love more than sport, it's watching the gorgeous women in it. And I mean this in a totally non-sexual way, mostly.
Unlike fashion models and the airheads in show business, these women are real - their medals a result of hours of getting down and dirty on the field.
Okay, so they are hot and sweaty and wear short, slinky outfits, but over the next eight pages you will learn that these women have gotten to wherever they are because of true grit, grace and perserverance.
The women in tennis lead the way. Long before Anna Kournikova sold the world sports bras telling us why "only the tennis ball should bounce on court", there was Gabriella Sabatini whose androgynous beauty endeared her to us and whose inability to get past Steffi Graf made us almost hate the German and mind you, she wasn't bad looking either.
The glamour angle in athletics was worked by Olympic gold medal-winning sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, who was quite a spectacle in the late 80s with her tousled hair and her one-legged leotards or 'athletic negligees' as she called them. But that was that.
However, the arrival of Kournikova in the 90s heralded a change in the way women in sport were viewed. Here was a blonde who was good looking enough to make people forget even today that she never won a single title of any repute.
And since then, it's been commonplace to see an athlete shed her kit for a glamour shoot; the latest is tennis player Ashley Harkerload who will jump out of the obscurity of her WTA ranking and on to the pages of Playboy this month.
And on that note and to celebrate the spirit of the summer Olympics this month, we present to you our round-up of the hottest women athletes today.
Danica Patrick
Age: 26
Sport: Motor racing
Why we picked her: A good-looking woman in a tight jumpsuit behind the wheel of a fast car. Why wouldn't men love a woman like Danica Patrick?
This little petrolhead from Wisconsin was a karting champion when she was 10, moved up the motor racing chain as a teen before landing a drive in the famed IndyCar Series - she was the only woman in the league in 2005 and won Rookie of the Year.
In April this year, Danica became the first woman to win an IndyCar race,winning the Indy Japan 300 race. Her petite good looks and popularity has seen her sizzle on the pages of FHM and Sports Illustrated swimsuit special.
Amy Acuff
Age: 33
Sport: Athletics (high jump)
Why we picked her: The triple Olympian from south Texas was on the cover of Playboy in September 2004 after missing out a bronze in the high jump final at the Athens Olympics.
A seasoned high-jumper, the 33-year-old former UCLA jumper has had a successful career as a model and appeared in magazines like FHM and Esquire in the past.
With a personal best of 2.01m (the world record is at 2.09m), the impossibly tall Amy (and her dimpled cheeks) will look at winning a medal at what is likely to be her last Olympic campaign.
Luciana Aymar
Age: 31
Sport: Hockey
Why we picked her: She turned down a $20,000 offer to pose for Playboy. This Argentine hockey player is a four-time FIH World Hockey Player of the Year. She has done for Argentine women's hockey what Maradona did for their soccer team.
Tall, graceful with those exquisite cheekbones, Luciana was a silver medallist at the Sydney Olympics and a bronze winner at Athens.
Nicknamed La Maga or 'The Magician' we'll get to see her strut her stuff in that tiny little skirt in Beijing this year. You know which team to root for now.
Anna Rawson
Age: 27
Sport: Golf
Why we picked her: Thank God for Anna Rawson. Every time they broadcast that sport for old fogies and social climbers on television, there's someone not changing channels hoping to get a glimpse of the woman they refer to as 'Sharapova of Golf'.
Originally from Adelaide, Australia, but now living in California, Anna was a model before she turned pro in 2004. What we really dig about the blue-eyed blonde is that she can step off the pages of Vogue and on to the greens of the LPGA Tour with equal ease.
Daniela Hantuchova
Age: 25
Sport: Tennis
Why we picked her: She has the longest legs in the history of long legs. The waif-like Slovak bombshell was the first serious contender for Anna Kournikova's title as 'the prettiest face in tennis' when she burst on the scene with a WTA title in 2002.
Blessed with great timing and good groundstrokes, Daniela climbed her way to no. 5 on the WTA ranking before bad form saw her ranking slip away.
She has represented her country at the Olympics and helped her team win the Federation Cup in 2003. Keep an eye out for her at Beijing. She can speak six languages, is a classically-trained pianist and looks a million bucks. Enough said.
Allison Stokke
Age: 19
Sport: Athletics (pole vault)
Why we picked her: Agreed. Women pole vaulters are a graceful lot unlike the sometimes androgynous track and field athletes. But why does a Google search for Allison Stokke return 239,000 results when she hasn't even made the US National team yet?
As an 18 year-old high school student, a picture taken at a track meet in New York showed the olive-toned, lissome athlete in a white tank top and black shorts.
This photo became a rage on the Internet and overnight there were dozens of fan sites dedicated to her. Stokke has broken five national records, is a scholarship student at the University of California and may just win an Olympic medal one day.
Ana Ivanovic
Age: 20
Sport: Tennis
Why we picked her: We only remember three occasions in the history of women's tennis when the no. 1 ranking has been held by a gorgeous woman - Steffi Graf, Maria Sharapova and now Ana Ivanovic as we went to press.
The tall Serbian's girl-next-door charm and attitude has earned her a multitude of male fans.
With a Grand Slam victory at the French Open this year and a possible shot at an Olympic gold in Beijing, it's no surprise that her country has even put her pretty figure on Serbia's postage stamps.
Lokelani McMichael
Age: 31
Sport: Triathlon
Why we picked her: She is to the world of sport, what Tia Carrere is to show business - exotically Hawaiian, beautiful and relatively unknown outside her select fan following.
In 1995, she became the youngest female athlete to complete the gruelling Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, and she was only 18 when she did so.
She's won local beauty pageants in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and says she models to 'pay the bills' to give her enough time to train for triathlons. Her name is actually Lokelani Kuulei Make Mai which means "heavenly rose my precious flower lei".
If anyone can look that hot on a bicycle, we'll take her, even if she's called Ukulele.
Amanda Beard
Age: 26
Sport: Swimming
Why we picked her: A gorgeously toned body and a 100-watt smile made sure Amanda Beard has a career as a model when she's not in the pool.
As a lithe 14-year-old she was on the medals podium (two gold medals and a silver) at the Atlanta Olympics, teddy bear in tow - an image that captured the imagination of a nation.
She's won medals at Sydney 2000 (a bronze) and at Athens 2004 she bagged the 200m breaststroke gold and two other silvers.
A keen environmentalist, Amanda is all style and substance and after pictorials in Playboy (July 2007) and FHM (Sept 2004, Aug 2006) and Sports Illustrated (2005), who can argue with that?
Yelena Isinbayeva
Age: 26
Sport: Athletics (pole vault)
Why we picked her: The brunette from Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) has 22 world records to her credit.
She is the first female pole vaulter to breach the 5m mark and has the grace and finesse of a gymnast thanks to her early years of gymnastics training.
Yelena is easily the most accomplished athlete of her generation, she won the pole vault gold at Athens and is the best bet for this year's gold at Beijing. And to top it all, she looks good enough to be in the movies.
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