Gail Devers
Jenny Thompson
Kelly Holmes twirling an umbrella (30 times)
(Confession: I’m actually less interested in this admittedly cool and impressive skill, than the motion of her even more impressive rock-hard arms. Her amazing. Rippling. Sinewy. Arms.)
#kelly holmes#distance runner#olympic athletes#british athletes#athletic women#that's right i made a gifset that reflected my fascination with kelly's well-muscled body#that tiny yet muscular physique of hers#her defined upper body#with broad shoulders#defined chest#and solid biceps#and powerful steely legs#that ludicrously super-athletic physique#accentuated with an adorably pleasant countenance#had the biggest crush on kelly holmes as a teenager#her royal petite buffness#arm porn#umbrella twirling#muscles#muscular#one of my first crushes#she's so buff and so cute#one of the uncredited pioneers of dumb jock energy#buff celebrities
bufffamouspeeps reblogged
Behold the shredded core of an Olympian. The rippling six-pack that bounces quarters, and could grate cheese on. The muscular midriff that carried a baby only three years before. Every other belly might as well be jelly compared to her stomach which looks like it was carved from granite. Her abs are tighter than a goatskin drumhead. They’re amazing.
That old Nike ad from 2000 - whhy sport?
Suzy Favor Hamilton, long before the infamous controversy over her secret life as a high-class sex worker*, was an Olympic US middle-distance runner, and appeared in a 2000 Nike advertisement which parodied the slasher film genre. In spite of the criticism that the ad received from feminists who argued (quite fairly) that the ad simply reproduces the imagery of violence (or the threat of violence) towards women for entertainment and profit**, and was eventually pulled down in response, there’s still a lot to love about it given the context. It is a stereotype. One of the “final girl”. But it played its trope in an interesting way - something I don’t usually say about Nike and other corporations as they try and hawk crap to you, even as they co-opt genuine pivotal social movements. But I digress.
The ad is 1 minute long and (naturally) starts in Hamilton’s bathroom, getting ready for bed (supposedly), when suddenly Jason Voorhees attacks her house with a chainsaw. Immediately, three tropes are at play: Woman in bathroom with implied nudity (denoting further vulnerability), a violent psychopath with a knife/machete/chainsaw, and said woman screaming and running for life. While all of these are in play - we are reminded of one thing: The young woman targeted, is Suzy Favor Hamilton. An Olympic runner.
She panics as as expected of the slasher genre, even tripping up on furniture as she struggles to get up, with the panicked face of a young doe who’s lost her mother.
However, even in this shot, we are reminded that the target is an athlete - Indeed, Hamilton is fearful, but she’s not helpless. She’s vulnerable, but sje’s not frail. And that frighetened expression Hamilton makes bearing this vulnerability is also juxtaposed with her powerful, muscular body. Once she gets her feet together, she takes off and literally makes the run of her life. She makes no tricks, no turns, just purely running in one direction, and that’s when reality ensues: as a professional athlete, Suzy is far more well-trained, and has considerably greater stamina than her pursuer.
And so, naturally, her pursuer gives up. Suzy’s escape is a success.
“Why sport? You’ll live longer” - The message is cheap, but technically true. It’s easy to understand why people would find this ad objectionable - the tropes featured on it were tiresome in 2000 as they are today, perhaps more so today. But in hindsight, while corporate female empowerment is mostly bullshit, this was a time when Suzy Favor Hamilton could have such national appeal that she easily outrun Jason. And that is as valid a paean to female athleticism as anything else.
* an occupation in spite of class that still receives a lot of stignatisation and she only got into largely due to her bipolar disorder and still get undeserved stick for.
** I thought Seanbaby was being unreasonably dismissive of their arguments (and misrepresented some of them) in his exchanges with them but generally agree with his overall point. It was also 2000, so he’s matured significantly since then.