08.12.2004:ESPN Reports on Female Olympic Nudity

From page 2 at ESPN.com:

"Has it come to this? Have the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens become the modern world's first Coed Naked Olympics?

	Swimmer Amanda Beard, one of many female Olympians who've recently done a magazine spread.

Could be.

American Olympians (and near-Olympians) Logan Tom, Amanda Beard, Haley Cope, Jenny Adams and Amy Acuff all appear nude or near-nude in the September issue of FHM magazine. Female Olympians have also appeared in provocative poses in Stuff and Maxim recently.

Jenny Thompson, Australian Lauren Jackson, the Aussie women's soccer team (the Matildas), a host of Russian athletes including gymnast Svetlana Khorkina -- they've all shed their clothes for "legitimate" photo shoots in the months and years leading up to these Summer Olympics.

So what are we to think about this? Do the athletes and/or their sports need publicity like this? Is this the end of civilization as we know it? Or should all Olympic events this summer be contested in the nude, as they were in ancient Greece?"

LVB: Why are the women athletes the ones feeling pressured to take their clothes off while the male athletes can get by with just being athletes?  I would really like to see all the male swimmers do a nude or semi-nude spread in Esquire.

Somehow all of this does not seem fair to me.  I also believe that many of these female athletes in the future will regret the decision they made to take their clothes off. I have no problem with nudity, but the Olympics are about athleticism. After the Olympics whatever an athlete does is his or her own business, but this simply distracts people from their amazing talents and hard work.  It is a shame.