WAXING: Athletic. Can you be good-looking AND talented?

A pro-level competitor or just a pretty face?

We at SurfLC were waxing athletic last night about the fact that most often women in sports either dominate and master their sport (Martina Navratilova, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Nancy Lopez, Lisa Leslie)  or are so good-looking, they cause people to watch the sport (Anna Kournikova, Danica Patrick, Natalie Gulbis…you get the idea).

This came back around to surfing in the debate about Alana Blanchard’s viability as a legitimate contender in the Tour this year.  On one hand, she is just a rookie and still has a lot of time to prove herself.  This class of rookies has a lot of promising talent and there is no reason why Blanchard couldn’t be at the top of the heap.  But on the other hand….Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what a nice booty.   Spectacular junk in the trunk, am I right?

With the exceptions of Maria Sharapova, Jennie Finch and maybe a few others, the world of women’s sports is chock full of either athletic beasts…or pretty faces.  There seem to be very few women who can care both torches proudly; to be a legitimate competitor and be a sex symbol for their sport.

Rawr.

Maybe it’s because stockier, stouter girls, by build and stature alone,  just have more athletic prowess and natural skill.  Maybe it’s because women’s sports, in only the last few decades, have been accepted as “real” sports that warrant an audience.  The visibility of women’s sports certainly has to be ramping up the encouragement of girls and women to participate in athletic competition more than ever, improving the personality-to-talent pool exponentially.

In surfing alone, fantastic surfers like  Sofia Mulanovich, and rookies Coco Ho and Serena Brooke and others are coming to the forefront of  the surfing scene, but are still rarely spoken of.  When they are, their awesome, carefree personalities shine through and make watching surfing all the more entertaining and engaging.  While Sofia is #3 in the world, Coco is #6 in her rookie season (though she comes from surfing royalty), Alana is #13.  Serena Brooke has been successfully competing on the tour on and off of 14 years and has a charity in her name for victim’s of child abuse.  Yet so many articles (and pictures – RAWR) of Alana cover surf magazines and websites.

This double standard is completely unacceptable in men’s sports.  Gorgeous Tom Brady has won Super Bowls.  Hottie David Beckham owns soccer.  The handsome Michael Jordan (until LeBron can win a championship) is the best basketball player of all time.  Even surfing’s own delicious Kelly Slater is the winningest surfer of the history of the ASP.  But Jason Taylor?  He can have a career on Dancing with the Stars.   David Carr?  Where is he now?  Warming, what..his 4th or 5th bench?  Yet you can look like Steve Nash or Randy “The Unit” Johnson and be some of these most popular, successful athletes of your time.

With all double standards aside, is their room for both beauty and brawn in women’s sports?  Is it beneficial to have both the brains and the looks behind the marketing of surfing?  Of course, surfers will always be in bathing suits, but can it till be taken seriously?  I guess only time will tell.

More Proof:  10 Hottest Girls in Pro Surfing.  So…where were Alana’s action shots?