READY** Hot Olympians You May Have Missed

August 13, 2008
STURTLE

You may have heard that there's some kind of sporting event going on. You may have even heard that one of the athletes taking part in that competition is hot and--brace yourselves--scantily clad. His name is Michael Phelps. You may have heard this from reporters and other media types who act as if Phelps is the only hot athlete who is, was, or ever will be. We are here to tell you: they are wrong.

There are squillions of sexy, saucy, sportsmen out there, and given their need for speed, they often wear little more than two ankle braces and a gob of Silly Putty. To prove our point, here are some of the studs you might've missed:

Guillaume and Bertrand Gille are French, they're brothers, and they play handball. Not the gay kind either: honest-to-goddess competitive handball. We've never heard of it either, but for them, we'd be willing to watch.

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Thomas Bimis is a world-class Greek diver. He is also very, very lucky, having waltzed to a gold medal in 2004 after a freak incident during which the American, Russian, and Chinese teams all tanked. Surely that's at least worth a first date?

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Daley Thompson is a British multi-decathlon winner. Plus, he knows all kind of queens--one of 'em even made him a Commander of the British Empire. And apparently, he's kinda crazy, which earn high points in our book.

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Vladimir Salnikov wasn't really on our radar until recently--after all, the US boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, so even if we were old enough to remember that year (ahem), we wouldn't have seen him in action. Still, he's got that Soviet-era bad boy thing going on, which has us drooling in our borscht.

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Okay, okay: the Greek water polo team from 1912 was totally way before our time. And things are definitely better 96 years later, what with cars and the internet and robot butlers and all. But those crotch bulges are enough to make us wonder when someone's going to get around to inventing the time machine.

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We don't have much to say about Kevin Tan: he's young, he's ripped, he's hot. And on Tuesday, he helped score a bronze medal for the US team. Patriots and muscle fans, commence worshiping!

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Competitive canoeing isn't usually the sort of thing that gets audiences amped up. But we're guessing that most of those audiences haven't seen Stefan Pfannmoeller in action. Get back to us after you've had a gander at his oar skills.

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We're not entirely sure that Serbian water polo star/underwear model Danilo Ikodinovic is participating in the summer Olympics, given his recent brush with death. In any case, we wish him the best of luck. We also wish he'd return our calls, fer crissakes.

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Orestes Kindelan...sigh. Is it just us, or do Cuban baseball players named Orestes--Orestes, y'all--push all the right buttons or what? We suppose those fuzzy forearms don't hurt...

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Robert Mathias was like Steve McQueen and Mannix all rolled into one. Not only was he an Olympic athlete par excellence, but he was also a four-term congressman in the US House of Representatives. Sure, he was straight, and he played for the Republican team, so he probably wasn't a great friend of the gays. But doesn't that make it even more titillating to think sexy thoughts about him?

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We've saved the best for last: Raj Bhavsar. A swarthy, muscle-bound gymnast with a great smile and possibly the Best Armpits on Planet Earth, Raj is also a great friend of Fatima: a last-minute addition to the 2008 Olympic team, he was one of the key reasons that the US walked away with a totally unexpected bronze. He is also one of the key reasons that we're considering booking a flight to his hometown of Houston to welcome him back, all personally and stuff.