SB Tunes: Lianne La Havas

I’m going to keep the London love going for just a wee bit longer in an effort to curtail Olympics withdrawal and offer up the beautiful British singer/songwriter/guitar player Lianne La Havas for your viewing and listening pleasure. She’s half Greek, half Jamaican, all cool. Cool as a cucumber, in fact.

As much as I adore an SB rocker in spiky boots and lean jeans with kicks high enough to knock a shot glass right away from the lips of a tall tall man, I also enjoy a lady – someone who sits with her knees together and doesn’t smash things or have mascara running down her face. La Havas is a lady. An adorable lady with a penchant for pretty dresses edged up with gigantic colorful platform booties and the neatest little side pony-pouf.

She has a new album out called Is Your Love Big Enough? and if you like your tunes a little folksy bluesy soulful and easy on the ears, then you must check her out. Her voice is divine. Actually, everything about her is divine. And we share a birthday. Which is coming up.

Hint: le vingt-trois Août.

Photo credit Ben Statham – Redferns via Getty Images

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

Olympic Shenanigans

Readers, you simply MUST read this ESPN Magazine piece about the sexual escapades that go on in the Olympic Village.

It’s no wonder that all these beautiful young people with incredible er, endurance, go completely bananas in the Vegas-like confines of the Village, but I guess I didn’t realize it was such a rager. Apparently the Village is stocked with 150,000 condoms, which is 50,000 more than at the Sydney Olympics where they ran out!

Here’s a snippet from the article:  And no matter your taste, the village has got you covered. The soccer girls? “All hot, and they dress like rock stars,” one male swimmer says. Male gymnasts? “They are like lovable little Ewoks,” Kintner says. Sacramone has a few favorites of her own: “As far as best bodies, it’s swimmers and water polo players, because that’s an insane workout. And the track guys, they’re sneaky-cute. Very serious, but when they lighten up, you’re like, ‘Oh, you’re kind of adorable.’”  

Ewoks! I would steer clear of those, for sure.

Good stuff.

Image credit: Noma Bar via ESPN Magazine

Olympic Girl Crush: Megan Rapinoe

Striker Abby Wambach and keeper Hope Solo tend to get all the attention on the US Women’s Soccer team, and there is no doubt they are righteous babes. But after Rapinoe’s flawless, elegant and completely bad-ass performance in Saturday’s USA v. Columbia game, my heart belongs to her.

With her shock of blond hair and high cheekbones, she looks like Tilda Swinton’s sporty cousin. There is something tomboyish yet high fashion about her and I find myself daydreaming about coming at Rapinoe with a six pack of beer, a pair of chandelier earrings and some eye liner.

Rapinoe. Baby. Call me.

Photo credit: Via Out Magazine and AP Photo

Olympic Coolness: Jamaica 1:US 0

It takes some real effort to make Olympic athletes look dorky. By definition, they are physical specimens, easy on the eyes and more at home in their bodies than the average human.

Ralph Lauren managed it brilliantly, however, with his double breasted blazers emblazoned with the giant polo symbol for the visually impaired. And could those white skirts possibly have been more dowdy? How about a pencil skirt, Ralph? Or a cute little kick pleat? Or above the knee, Lord knows these ladies have good legs, Ralph. And those berets. Mon dieu, those berets. As Americans, we need to stop it with the Olympic berets. Stop it, Ralph. Arretez-vous!

Actually, I would argue we need to stop it with the Ralph Lauren entirely.

Photo credits: Of Bolt: Michael Regan/Getty Images Europe; Of Bryant: AP Photo/David Goldman

SB Loves: Naked Olympians

Did you see the photo spread in the ESPN Body Issue featuring Olympic athletes posing nude? As if we needed any more reason to be all frothy for the upcoming Summer Olympics!

The most successful portraits are the ones that display the athletes’ musculature at work, doing what they do best. Just look at sailor, Anna Tunnicliffe. My word! The strength! And don’t even get me started on muddy soccer defender, Carlos Bocanegra.

Their bodies are, in a word, spectacular.

See for yourself.

Photo credit: Steven Lippman