Is Amanda Beard setting a bad example?....I'll have to take a look to judge :) (Page 2)

Yes...a couple of years ago she was the most downloaded felmale athlete in the world.

Well, one possibly reason why is because she's a hell of an athlete.  She took home 3 olympic medals in the 1996 olympics at the age of 15 and 1 more at the 2000 games....that's 4 olympic medals before she was even old enough to drink!  4 years later she took home 3 more.   7 olympic medals by the age of 23 ain't too bad.

I don't even have to mention that at the age of 22 she set the world record in the 200m breast stroke, not too shabby either. 

This whole argument about whether or not female athletes only get noticed when they're attractive kind of bothers me.  I think one could safely bet that it doesn't hurt when male athletes are attractive either, look at David Beckham or Any Roddick or Tiger Woods.  If these people weren't respected as world class athletes first then they'd never be recognizable, male or female.  Show me an example of an athlete that is being portrayed as a sex symbol, male or female, who totally sucks at their game. 

 And why limit the argument to athletes?  Look at the list that, I think it's People magazine, puts out every year...the top 50 most beautiful people or something like that.  I'm willing to bet they have male athletes, female athletes, business people, actors, singers, cooks, whatever.  They are all respected for what they've accomplished first, being attractive just helps seal the deal.

Heh, I guess she should have had the No. 1 doubles ranking for 16 months instead of the 15 she had it for.  Oh, and she won 16 doubles titles, including two Grand Slam doubles.  What a loser (it's the singles game she never won anything important in)

Yeah, I had to look it up.  But she's hot anyway

I just knew somebody say her as an example. Sure, she never won a major singles title but she was still world ranked. That and she was the #1 doubles player. IN THE WORLD. I wouldn't say she sucks by any stretch of the imagination!

Mad props for the correct spelling of her last name though, I had to look it up!

I'll admit that the fact that she's absolutely beautiful undeniably launched her to global super-stardom but had she not been a dominant tennis player she'd just have been another pretty girl. I think it's safe to say she earned a lot of respect for her athletic prowess.