Amanda Beard: Nude again

BEIJING -- So much for tennis player Ashley Harkleroad getting all the attention for posing nude in Playboy.

Amanda Beard, who'd already gone the Playboy cover girl route, wasn't going to stand by and let that happen.

Kidding aside, Beard is quite savvy, and she's using the Olympic platform for maximum impact. She unveiled her naked, anti-fur campaign poster for PETA on Wednesday morning at a function just outside the athletes' village. Originally, the launch was planned for a hotel conference room but officials locked it down, citing security concerns.

The poster says:

BE COMFORTABLE
IN YOUR OWN SKIN.
DON'T WEAR FUR.

And Beard isn't wearing fur in the photo -- or anything else.

Beard wasn't at swim practice at the Water Cube early Wednesday evening. In fact, most of the U.S. swimmers weren't there. But her former coach, Dave Salo of USC, was on the deck.

Salo coached Beard when she qualified for her first Olympic team in 1996 at age 14 and again this past spring in advance of the Beijing Games. Beard left Salo to train with Cyndi Gallagher at UCLA, but she remains close with Salo.

When we asked him about the poster, he shrugged and smiled: "When they get older ... I don't have any control. When she was 14, it was a little easier."

Somewhere, that cute (and, yes, furry) teddy bear, the one Beard used to carry around on the way to the starting blocks, is blushing.

-- Lisa Dillman

Updated at 11:05 with the additional information about Cyndi Gallagher.

Photo: Amanda Beard signs her autograph after unveiling her nude poster for People for the Ethical Treatment of Aminals at the Olympic Village in Beijing on Wednesday. Credit: Jewel Sama / AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[Leigh]

Notice in the photo that the American Flag is hung backwards. The Union (blue rectangle with the stars) should be on the left as you look at the photo not on the right.
1SG (RET) Army National Guard
Afghanistan Veteran

[Bob]

American integrity is exceedingly compromised by an Olympian who's thinking not of her country, but of herself. She should be ashamed, as should our country for allowing such a disgraceful representation by one of its ambassadors.

[outback 1]

Of course the US flag is backwards, this is PETA who just might be linked to terrorist bombings in Santa Cruz.

[Gizmoya]

She know what she is doing. this is cool way to make own publicity.

[M]

What a hypocrite! She wears UGGS!

[J. M. Stovall]

I applaud her. I wish more of the athletes participating in China
would take a stand on the FUR issue. If they would watch the
Video of how cruel and viciously these animals are slaughtered,
maybe they would. It take guts.

[theGM]

You have to commend her for doing it for a great cause to save animals that are tortured in many inhumane fashions.. If you haven't watched PETA videos or at least hers you should..

theGM,
www.girlroster.com

[Amy]

She has pimped herself horribly over the past year as sex symbol. It would have been way sexier if she showed herself as a top US athlete. I am not in anyway diminishing her past performances but she seems to have lost her focus. The Olympics is a chance to show your best athletic performance and instead she uses Beijing as a place to market her body. Cause or not my guess is she wears some killer leather boots in the winter to show off those toned legs. I am just disappointed.