We've pointed out a number of times that female tennis stars are among our most-searched athletes on Lycos. Anna Kournikova is one of our Lycos poster girls, of course, and a combination of beauty and ability make stars like Martina Hingis, Jennifer Capriati, and the Williams sisters regular visitors to our list of the top athletes, which is published on Lycos Sports each week.
We've had other women's sports make search waves as well. Volleyball player Gabrielle Reece was popular thanks to a Playboy pictorial. Soccer stars Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain have made our top athletes list. The entire Australian Women's Soccer team made the Lycos 50 in December 1999 thanks to a nude calendar. But nobody would expect searches for a player from the little-known world of professional women's squash.
Well, hold on to your zucchinis folks, because squash has its first Internet hottie. Her name is Vicky Botwright.
Botwright, a 23 year-old native of Manchester, England, is the world's #18 ranked squash player. A low-ranked player in a low-interest sport is not someone you expect to see drawing Internet searches. But Botwright has become a controversial figure thanks to her figure -- or, more to the point, her display of it.
Botwright caused a stir in Britain by wearing a skimpy thong and sports bra during a British Open squash match. After pictures of the outfit (which you can find here) were printed in the newspapers, the squash powers-that-be banned the outfit. They complained that it would be a "distraction for referees."
But with controversy raging, they relented and allowed Botwright to wear the thong. After all the controversy, she lost in it. But her popularity had received a huge boost.
This week, Botwright goes from zero searches to more searches than the late, great Jack Lemmon. She also gets more searches this week than any athlete except for Anna Kournikova and Allen Iverson. That means more than any baseball player, more than Tiger Woods, and more than all the other tennis hotties such as Martina Hingis and Jelena Dokic.
This isn't the first time an outfit has caused controversy in women's sports. You might remember in 1985, when tennis player Anne White created an uproar at Wimbledon by sporting an all-white Lycra bodysuit. One can only imagine those searches had we had the Internet in 1985, since tennis is far more popular than squash.
If you are looking for information on playing squash yourself, whether in a thong or another outfit (a frilly mu mu perhaps) you can check these Lycos links. We've got some recipes for squash soup too.
The Lycos 50 takes tomorrow off to celebrate independence, but will return Friday to answer the question: what on earth has gotten into searches for tattoos?
