Ask the SB: Beach Volleyball Attire

Q: What do you think about the fact that the women beach volleyball players in the Olympics are in scanty bikinis while the men get to wear long shorts? Is this eye-candy disguised as sports?

–Kris

A: Kris, I have heard some minor rumblings and muted hullabaloo about this very issue and although I sometimes get my knickers in a twist from the slightest passing breeze, this is not something I find overly vexing.

To me what you are seeing is not eye-cany disguised as sports, but conversely, sports disguised as eye-candy. The truth is these beach volleyball babes are incredible athletes. I can barely walk on a beach without an unseemly Quasimodo-like gait, let alone do the kind of jumping and digging and diving that they do.

Sand is a bitch.

Which leads me to my next point. It’s A LOT easier to dust sand off of bare skin than to shake it out of the nooks and crannies of clothing. If you were to catch any of these athletes practicing at home, I’d bet my beach umbrella and my umbrella cocktail that they’d be wearing much the same thing. Their bikinis aren’t actually much smaller than what the track and field ladies wear, and arguably there is more call for a two-piece on a beach than on a track or in a field, right?

In fact, the IOC has declared that beach volleyball players can wear shorts and sleeves, in an effort to encourage Muslim athletes to compete, but it seems no one has made the change except for when it’s cold out.

I think these women don’t think about it or much care. The fact that they look kinda hot is a lucky byproduct, and I say enjoy the strength, the athleticism and yes, the hotness in a situation happily devoid of airbrushing.

This is real and this is good.

Toodles,

SB

And p.s. perhaps what is ruffling your feathers is the fact that the photographers seem hell bent on getting the most ass shots possible. I think that is partially true (they’re only human and they want to sell their pictures) and also partially circumstantial (the ladies do stand around poking their bums out at the start of every point). But we don’t cover up women to protect them from men, photogs or otherwise.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong