Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska responds to criticism she received at home for participating in a nude photo shoot for ESPN The Body Issue. Catholic priests at home criticized Radwanska and a Polish Catholic youth group dropped her from its membership.
“ESPN The Body Issue is a celebration of the beauty of the bodies of the best athletes in the world,” Radwanska said in a Facebook post. “It includes both men and women of all ages and all shapes and sizes….The pictures are certainly not meant to cause offense and to brand them as immoral clearly does not take into account the context of the magazine. Moreover, they do not contain any explicit imagery whatsoever. I train extremely hard to keep my body in shape and that's what the article and the magazine is all about.
“If you read the interview, it only discusses my job as an athlete and what I have to do physically to be able to participate at the highest level of sport. It has been suggested by some members of the press (among others) that I was paid for the photo shoot. This is absolutely not the case….I agreed to participate to help encourage young people, and especially girls, to exercise, stay in shape and be healthy."