Jayden Hadler, swimming
The Olympics are the best sports showcase for the beauty of the human body, male and female. One bonus of hours of insane training and diet is a rockin' bod, and we all notice, gay, straight or somewhere else on the spectrum.
As one Olympian told ESPN the Magazine, "Even if their face is a 7, their body is a 20." Below, in honor of the XXX Olympiad, are the XXX best bodies, male division. We also have a gallery of the best women, selected by Lucy Hallowell of AfterEllen.com.
These are highly subjective picks, heavy on Americans and certain sports where we see more skin. I know there are terrific bodies on European, South American, Asian and African athletes, but I have seen very few of them, and hope to do a follow-up gallery after the Games.
Post any comments, along with any other athlete you like.
Click image for larger view:
[gallery columns="6"]
Photo credits:
Alain Bernard (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Alex Naddour (Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE)
Andreas Thorkildsen (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
Ashton Eaton (Scott Olmos-US PRESSWIRE)
Chris Brooks (Stew Milne-US PRESSWIRE)
Christophe Lemaitre (Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)
Craig Kinsley (Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE)
Hans Van Alphen (Photo by Trackpic. Follow his track updates on Facebook)
Jake Dalton (Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE)
Jake Herbert (Kevin Jairaj-US PRESSWIRE)
James Magnussen (Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Jayden Hadler (Jonathan Wood/Getty Images)
Jordan Burroughs (Jim Cowsert-US PRESSWIRE)
Justin Gatlin (Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE)
Justin Lester (Jim Cowsert-US PRESSWIRE)
LeBron James (Gary A. Vasquez-US PRESSWIRE)
Luca Dotto (Feng Li/Getty Images)
Matthew Mitcham (Chris Hyde)
Maurice Mitchell (Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE)
Nathan Adrian (Andrew Weber-US PRESSWIRE)
Nick Symmonds (From Symmonds' Twitter feed)
Pascal Behrenbruch (Photo by Trackpic. Follow his track updates on Facebook)
Jake Dalton (Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE)
Philipp Boy (Adam Pretty/Getty Images)
Prashanth Sellathurai (Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)
Ricky Berens (Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-US PRESSWIRE)
Ryan Lochte (Andrew Weber-US PRESSWIRE)
Sam Mikulak (Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE)
Tony Azevedo (Kevin Jairaj-US PRESSWIRE)
Trey Hardee (Photo by Trackpic. Follow his track updates on Facebook)
Jake Dalton (Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE)
Usain Bolt (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
