Looking for some exposure? Maybe try exposing yourself

By Laura Williamson

PUBLISHED: 16:39 EST, 7 April 2013 | UPDATED: 07:01 EST, 8 April 2013

We appear to have found the way to propel female athletes into the spotlight. No, not genuine success or better financial rewards, but stripping off.

Jockey Leonna Mayor was the latest female athlete to pose in her undies in the name of sport this week, posturing provocatively in lads’ mag Zoo ahead of Saturday’s Grand National.

Rod Street, chief executive of Great British Racing, praised a ‘great job’ from someone who ‘looked fantastic’ and defended an attempt to attract new audiences to a sport that is largely ‘invisible’ to the magazine’s readers.

Women's hour: Jockey Leonna Mayor hangs up her silks for a magazine shoot

Gaining exposure: Jockey Leonna Mayor did a photo shoot for lads' mag Zoo

But others — mostly women — were offended by Mayor’s decision to parade around in her pants. There were not many blokes complaining, though, funnily enough.

Let’s not kid ourselves that it is empowering to reveal all in the pages of a magazine, but it is not demeaning, either.

It’s just a bit of short-term salaciousness; something nice to ogle at for five minutes. More pertinently, it is also a sure-fire way to produce the coverage and cash many sportswomen crave. This is the sad part, not a woman’s willingness to get her kit off.

Mayor is not the first and will not be the last to exploit the ‘phwoar’ factor for personal gain. She did look fantastic, and if you’ve got it, why not flaunt it? Gracing a billboard in only his boxers and a pout has never done David Beckham any harm.

The rules, though, are totally different when it comes to female athletes.

Beckham could sign lucrative modelling contracts while captaining his country and it served only to enhance the brand.

Men wanted to be like him and women wanted to be with him. But a woman shows a bit of flesh, and she is instantly dismissed as cheap and doing her sport — and her fellow competitors — a disservice.

The England women’s football team, who beat Canada 1-0 on Sunday with an Ellen White goal in added time at Rotherham as Rachel Yankey emulated Peter Shilton by winning her 125th cap, have been debating the rights and wrongs of doing a photoshoot for a while.

Not stripping off, but something tasteful and fun, perhaps in a women’s magazine, which celebrates their athletic  figures and shows that women’s football is not played by bruisers with black eyes.

‘Personally, I’m interested in doing things like that. The other girls have different opinions on it,’ said Toni Duggan, the Everton and England forward, 21, who posed for a shoot with the Liverpool Echo.

‘Their view is, they’re good at  football: that’s what they do and why should they get their kit off to promote it?

Turning her back on critics: Beckham was never criticized for taking his clothes off in public

Milestone: Rachel Yankey won her 125th cap for England on Sunday

‘But, on the other side, I feel that it’s good because the young girls are used to seeing size-six girls in magazines who aren’t eating.

‘So why not open it and see these other girls who do sport?’

This would be a refreshing change, but not every sportswoman is blessed with model looks, nor should they have to be. Athletes’ bodies are moulded to the demands of their sport, not of glossy magazine pages.

A more powerful image would have shown Mayor after a fall in what remains a brutal sport, for men and women. But if she prefers to play pretty, then that’s her prerogative.

What they said...

‘There is a Marseille player, I cannot remember his name, an Englishman…Because no-one is talking  about him, it seems it is fun for him to criticise great players for people to know he exists.’ 

Hitting back: Thiago Silva delivered his response to Joey Barton's insult to the PSG star

Thiago Silva delivers a great putdown — and Mr Twitter himself, Joey Barton, responds by calling him an ‘overweight ladyboy’. All those who jumped on the Barton-led bandwagon of heralding the oik as football’s great intellectual after he copied and pasted a few philosophical quotes, hang your heads in shame.

...And this is what I have been up to this week

Enjoyed watching Mohamed Salah’s performance in Basle’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham on Thursday night.

The Egyptian, who is only 20, caused Spurs all sorts of problems coming in off the right wing. Andre Villas-Boas’ pre-match statement that his side had ‘superior players’ definitely did not ring true.

Good performance: Mohamed Salah starred for Basle during their draw with Spurs

Tasted wine with David Ginola. I’ve had worse jobs…

Noted that two more Russian athletes, Svetlana Krivelyova and Olga Kuzenkova, have received doping bans of two years each. It is now at the stage where serious questions need to be asked about the logic of staging August’s World Championships in Moscow.

A meagre number of tickets have been sold, but who can blame spectators for staying away if they cannot believe what they are watching?