chess beauties

this will be the last of the chess and sex images for a while [we promise], but we had to share this one: World Chess Beauty Contest!?!

Maria Manakova | World Chess Beauty Contest | source

from The New York Times:

The site [World Chess Beauty Contest] was started earlier this year [2005] by Vladislav Tkachiev, 32, a Kazakh grandmaster who is ranked 83rd in the world, and his brother, Eugeny, 39. The younger Mr. Tkachiev, who appears in photos to be well-built and boyish looking, said they had started the site to raise the profile of the game. "Chess desperately needs some glamour," Mr. Tkachiev said. The brothers are not the only ones trying to inject some glamour, or at least sex appeal, into the game. Alexandra Kosteniuk, 21, a dark-haired, porcelain-skinned Russian grandmaster who is ranked fifth in the world among women and 525^th over all, models and uses her Web site to sell photos of herself posing in bikinis next to giant chess pieces.

Maria Manakova, 31, who is the fourth-ranked woman in Russia and who is ranked eighth on the Beauty Contest site, attracted attention last year when she posed nude for Speed, a Russian magazine. She followed it up by posing for Maxim and the Russian edition of Playboy.

The efforts to spice up the game mainly emanate from Eastern Europe, whose players have long dominated the sport and where cheesecake displays are less likely to draw complaints about the exploitation and the objectification of women.

And capitalizing on sex appeal is also not exactly a new idea in competitive sports. Before Ms. Reid, tennis had Anna Kournikova and beach volleyball had Gabrielle Reese and soccer had Mia Hamm.

But chess?

We have to say: hell, yes!