They may have finished only second at last week’s world championships but, even against impressive competition, they go straight in at No 1 of our barely-there top 10. For a start, they managed the not inconsiderable feat of making synchronised swimming interesting, as they arranged themselves in a circle of lithe peep-show flesh, each artfully covering the chest of the colleague to her left with an outstretched palm. Wonderfully, though, the team wasn’t actually properly synchronised, so that misplaced limbs revealed rather more than they should have done. It looked less like a sport, more like a saucy seaside postcard made reality. Although the beach at Marbella never looked quite so aesthetically pleasing. “David Beckham wouldn’t last two minutes with us in the pool,” Paola Tirados, 22, said.

2 England’s rugby union team

Inspired, they said, more by the example of broad-minded Women’s Institute groups than gym-toned female athletes, the squad volunteered for a calendar in 2001 that was about as subtle as one of their rolling mauls. Some of the old guard at Twickenham may have looked on with a mixture of disdain and envy, but thankfully the black-and-white pictures — which raised funds for disabled athletes — stopped just short of being full-frontal. That patently did the players something of a favour, as the snaps were taken on a damp, bitterly cold October afternoon. One or two of the more self-conscious players may have felt they didn’t quite measure up to the occasion.

3 Denise Lewis in bodypaint

Contrary to first impressions, in her cover shoot for Total Sport magazine in 1997, the heptathlete was naked apart from a few strategic licks of red, white and blue. With her chocolate, silver-screen cheekbones, the point of pouting topless had apparently been to show teenage girls that “you don’t have to look like an east European shot-putter” to win multi-sport events in track and field. Recently, though, Lewis has expressed resentment that she continues to be typecast as track totty, rallying against the unreconstructed “babe” tag. Looks aside, nothing would be quite so alluring as an Olympic gold medal around her neck in Athens next year.

4 Colin Jackson by Herb Ritts

Ritts, the acclaimed American photographer, was said to be taken by the 110m hurdler’s “amazing face”. So, he asked Jackson to strip. The sleek and chic stills, posed for a 1997 advert for Tag Heuer watches, even got Roger Black gushing. “Colin looks very slender, but – without getting too personal – his buttocks are significantly developed,” he panted. “That’s where the power comes from. Colin is pretty much the perfect specimen.” The nation was divided between those who appreciated Jackson’s rear and those who admired his stride pattern.

5 Tatiana Grigorieva

Twenty-nine Australian athletes posed in 2000, as the blurb for Black and White magazine put it, “wearing the Olympic uniform of the ancient Greeks”, but Grigorieva was alone in agreeing to a full-frontal snap. The eye-catching pictures prompted marriage proposals from Arab princes and an offer to be a dinner-date prize in a condom-branding competition. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” was the pole-vaulter’s comment. We didn’t. She went on to win a silver medal at the Sydney Games.

6 David Trezeguet

The Juventus striker got the bum’s rush when he dashed from the field on the final day of the 2000-01 Italian League season. Valiant Juve had beaten Atalanta 2-1, but it was not enough to prevent Roma winning the League. Fans invaded the pitch and promptly started stripping their unlucky heroes bare in the quest for memorabilia. By the time they got to the touchline, some of the players were down to their designer underpants. The Frenchman more accustomed to exposing defenders did his best to preserve some dignity.

7 Australian women’s football team

In the run-up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, 12 of the Matildas bared all (yes, all) to raise money for their training. Why? “Sure, it’s oppressive, but so are stilettos,” said Moya Dodd, a former striker, “and there is still the occasional good reason for putting them on.” The photographs did well, with sales exceeding 50,000, the team less so — despite their obvious assets, they finished last in their group. Last year, their coach ordered his Sheilas to keep their kit on.

8 Katarina Witt in Playboy

After saying “no” for 10 years, the figure-skater finally relented with a 10-page nude photo special in the Christmas 1998 issue of Playboy. The master shot depicted the former double Olympic champion doing a handstand in front of a Hawaiian waterfall. She refused to sprawl on a bed in suspenders, insisting that she be pictured “among nature”. The biggest compliment, she said, was the number of women who approached her to get autographs for their husbands.

9 Denise Marston-Smith

Marston-Smith thought her sport had a jolly hockey-sticks image problem, so she went topless in 2001 to show it wasn’t so much old birds in knee-length skirts as “young birds with short skirts”. Known as Dolly because of her dolly-bird outfits, the England hockey international turned away from the camera because “I don’t think I’ve got enough up there”. She wouldn’t reveal all unless she was “young, confused and desperate for money”. With an eye for figures matched by our own, she added: “I’d have to invest in a boob job first, so I’d have spent the profits before I earned them.”

10 The bowling ladies of Stony Stratford

Needing cash for a clubhouse in Milton Keynes, 16 bowlers peeled off for a calendar and raised more than £10,000. “I’m going to be in more toilets than Andrex,” said Pat Pye, 57, who was banned by her granddaughter from visiting her at school.