All About Sports: Amanda Beard Swimming Athlete

Amanda Ray Beard (born October 29, 1981 in Newport Beach, California), is an American Olympic-level swimmer and model. Beard participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics, 2000 Summer Olympics, 2004 Summer Olympics, and 2008 Summer Olympics, capturing a total of seven medals, the most recent in the 2004 games. She held the world number one ranking of 200 meter breaststrokes in 2003. In U.S. competition, Beard won three 200 meter breaststroke, three 100 meter breaststroke, and two 200 meter individual medley US National titles.

At the 2000 Summer Olympics, Beard won a bronze a medal in the 200 m breaststroke.Beard attended the University of Arizona where she won an individual NCAA Division I championship in 2001. In 2003, she became the world champion and American record holder in the 200-meter breaststroke.
At the 2004 U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, she qualified to participate in four events at the Athens games and broke the world record in the 200 m breaststroke. She went on to win the gold medal in the 200 m breaststroke. Beard also won silver in both the 200 m individual medley and the 4x100 m medley relay. Her split in the medley would have won her the gold medal in the 100 breaststroke; her split was the fastest out of the eight competing (1:06.32).

2008 Summer Olympic Games.
At the 2008 US Olympic Swim Trials, Beard finished second in the 200 meter breaststroke event, and she qualified for her fourth consecutive Olympics. On 30 July 2008, at the US swimming team's final training in Singapore, Beard, together with Dara Torres and Natalie Coughlin, were elected co-captains of the US Olympic women’s swimming team.
In Beijing, Beard failed to reach the semifinals in the 200 meter breaststroke, placing 18th in the preliminaries.

2010 USA Swimming Nationals
In August, 2010, she came out of retirement to compete at the 2010 Conoco Phillips National Championships. She finished second in the 200 breast finals at 2:26.50, qualifying her for the Pan Pac Team to represent the USA later in the month.In the 100 breast, Amanda Beard swam a 1:08.72 in prelims and 1:09.12 in finals, finishing 6th.
After the US Nationals, Beard and Natalie Coughlin were nominated co-captains of Team USA once again. During the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, Amanda Beard signed up for her two signature events, the 100 m and the 200 m breaststroke. Beard qualified for finals in both events, but failed to medal. She was fifth in the 100 breast (1:07.49) and fifth in the 200 breast (2:24.30).

Modeling and Advertising
Her modeling work has included appearances in FHM, the 2006 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. Edition, and she posed nude for the July 2007 issue of Playboy magazine.
She is a spokeswoman for Defenders of Wildlife, and enjoys interior decorating. Both of her sisters, Leah and Taryn, are swimmers. Amanda placed eighth in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Celebrity car race in 2006.
In November 2007, Beard made her first television commercial for Go Daddy entitled "Shock". It featured her "flashing" the seven Olympic medals she won from 1996-2004. Mark Spitz made a cameo appearance.In April 2008, she joined Fox Network's popular sports talk program, The Best Damn Sports Show Period as a correspondent, covering major sporting events.
In 2008, Beard participated in an anti-fur campaign for the organization PETA. She was photographed nude in front of an American Flag. The flag in that photograph is hung incorrectly according the United States Flag Code with the blue field to the upper right. Shortly after the PETA campaign was released, accusations of hypocrisy surfaced where Beard told a fashion blogger the year before that her favorite shoes were leather sandals and that she would never buy a low-quality jacket during an interview with Smart Money magazine.