Women of The Olympics

So if the “uh huh oh yeah she can handle my spear anytime!” type comments are getting old with Paraguay female javelin thrower Leryn Franco, sorry but the truth bears repeating. Leryn Franco naked in Playboy ? Well she is a model so we can only hope.

Not quite on the hotness scale of the pole vaulter who didn’t make it to the Olympics, Allison Stokke naked (not naked pictured below) but I wouldn’t kick either of them outta bed for eating whatever the common 3am Paraguayan snack food is.

Topless photos of Olympic hockey player Katharina Scholz, sailor Petra Niemann, judo competitor Romy Tarangul and canoeist Nicole Reinhardt are published on four alternative front covers of the latest German edition of the adult magazine PLAYBOY.

Nicole Reinhardt poses with only a canoe paddle to protect her modesty, while Niemann is shown tugging on a sailing rope over her head.

Scholz defended her decision to pose nude but said that she had no plans for a future in modeling.

“For me it was a good opportunity, and maybe when I look back after a few years I will be proud of it,” the 25-year-old said.

“Not everybody can go on the cover of Playboy. I did it because I am confident of my body and myself.”

She added: “It wasn’t a group decision, we haven’t seen each other. The shooting was separate. Everyone decided it for themselves.”

The four Germans are not the first Olympic athletes to strip off for extra publicity.

US Olympic swimming champion Amanda Beard posed naked in Playboy last year. In 2004 during the Athens Olympics, Amy Acuff, Ineta Radevica, Zhanna Block, Mary Sauer, Haley Cope, Susan Tiedtke-Green, Fanni Juhasz, Katie Vermeulen all posed naked in PLAYBOY. More recently three British athletes including triple jumper Phillips Idowu bared all as part of an advertising campaign ahead of this year’s Games.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Olympic swimming champion Amanda Beard, who appeared naked in Playboy magazine in 2007, is to appear naked in an advertising campaign protesting against fashion furs that will be launched at the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Wednesday.

The campaign is on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which said the  U.S. swimmer Amanda Beard would attend the launch, that features photos of her naked, in front of the Water Cube swimming venue, two days before the Games open.

“Seeing animals slaughtered to be worn as fashion is awful to me, so I’m definitely against wearing fur … I’d much rather go naked than ever put a dead animal on my body,” PETA quoted Amanda Beard as saying. Past celebs to bare it all include Alicia Silverstone, Christina Applegate, Christy Turlington, Kim Basinger and Pamela Anderson.

The 26-year-old came to prominence at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics when as a 14-year-old she took her teddy bear with her on to the victory podium.

She won gold in the 200m breaststroke at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and, billed as one of the world’s sexiest athletes, has also appeared in Sports Illustrated and FHM magazines.

Click to see Amanda Beard naked in Playboy

So everyone is again looking for the Amanda Beard Playboy pics . Well the shoot was in the July 2007 Playboy but if you don’t have a copy you can see her in all her naked tight-bodied, high resolution glory at Playboy Online as well as every other celebrity who has ever appeared naked in Playboy and of course every playmate back to the 1950’s

Below is a video of an interview that Amanda Beard did regarding her Playboy shoot