NEW YORK — What do Carolyn Murphy and Olympic swimming gold medalist Amanda Beard have in common?
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
This year’s edition features a slew of athletes, along with the requisite scantily clad models lounging about beaches and exotic locales worldwide. Among the athletes in the 2005 issue, which hit newsstands Tuesday, are Beard, softball player Jennie Finch, tennis star Venus Williams and basketball player Lauren Jackson.
“The athletes are so healthy looking and they look great in swimsuits,” said Diane Smith, editor-in-chief of the highly coveted annual issue. “This year, we took a very sporty angle for the issue, so the athletes fit in perfectly for that.”
SI Swimsuit has had athletes model before — Serena Williams has posed for the last two years and Anna Kournikova has also been featured — but this is the most in the same issue.
“I am very comfortable in a swimsuit, so this wasn’t a stretch for me,” said Beard, who won three medals at the Summer Games in Athens and has been featured in photo spreads in such magazines as FHM. “It’s good to see more toned women in this issue and for people to see that beautiful women have other talents.”
There are still plenty of the requisite model-on-the-beach shots, but the latest issue also shows more active pursuits.
“The hardest thing is to take a model on the beach and do something different,” said Smith, who with her team spends the entire year working on the magazine. “By using the sports theme, she is on the beach but doing an activity like snowboarding, river rafting, fly fishing and scuba diving. It gave us a new angle. There are also shots done underwater, as well as ones with jerseys bodypainted on the models.”
The year’s publication, the 42nd edition and the 10th stand-alone issue, also got some extra hype from NBC’s new reality show called “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search,” which chronicled the contest for a new face for the magazine.
Alicia Hall, a 19-year-old from Las Vegas, won the nationwide search and is featured in this issue and also signed a contract with Next Model Management. Other big-name models this year are Frankie Ryder and Yamila Diaz Rahi, with Carolyn Murphy gracing the cover. There are also four male athletes shot with their significant others, including Dallas Cowboys receiver Keyshawn Johnson and his wife, Shikiri, and Miami Dolphins quarterback A.J. Feely and girlfriend Heather Mitts of the U.S. women’s soccer team.
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As another gimmick, the issue comes with 18 model trading cards and its online edition has been beefed up with more behind-the-scenes photos and the launch of a digital edition that sells for $5.99. The print issue has a circulation of 4.5 million and is one of the most widely read issues of any magazine in the world, reaching an estimated 59 million adults, according to media research firm MRI.
The SI Swimsuit issue is one of the company’s bestsellers and provides a big boon for swimwear firms. Many create special suits for the issue, and the editors spend months scouring the market for newcomers and interesting swimwear. This year, new labels featured include Christina Liquori, Speedo’s new high-end Platinum line, Island Company, Juicy Couture’s new swim line and KGB by Kristi Grinna. Among the more established labels in the issue are Calvin Klein, Gottex, Nautica, Nike, Ralph Lauren, Guess and Roxy.
Smith said her team this year sorted through about 10,000 suits to find the roughly 100 that are featured in the magazine. “We like to make sure we have every shape and size,” she added.
The shoots were done in a range of international locales, including a ski mountain in Chile, a river-rafting colony in Honduras and beaches in Croatia, Belize, the Bahamas and Thailand.