Kerri Walsh Jennings without bikini (and with baby)

SoCal is well represented, as usual, in ESPN The Magazine's annual Body Issue celebrating the fact that the editors and photographers got a bunch of gorgeous-bodied athletes to strip naked — again. This year's parade of tasteful-but-fully nudes runs the gamut from 77-year-old golfer and cover boy Gary Player to 23-year-old UCLA soccer star and cover girl Sydney Leroux. In all there are eight covers, many with Los Angeles connections. Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton is from here and NHRA funny car driver Courtney Force stands proud on a salt pan in the Mojave Desert. Other local angles include rock climbers Chris Sharma and Daila Ojeda hanging naked from boulders in the Bishop area, and UFC fighter Miesha Tate on the beach in Malibu. But the royalty of the bunch, in Olympic gold and pure physical confidence, has to be local beach volleyball champion Kerri Walsh Jennings.

In her cover photo, Walsh Jennings is pregnant with her daughter, Scout, who was born in April. I'm pretty sure she's the only woman in the issue to have mothered three babies before stripping down for ESPN. She talks about it in the promotional video for the Body Issue, above, which includes the photo shoot of her while mucho pregnant and another some months later with one of her sons in tow. "Having babies makes me feel like Wonder Woman," she says in the issue. I guess it helps if you are 6'3", a world-class athlete and used to competing in front of crowds almost nude anyway.

Walsh Jennings, who is now 34, used the promotional buzz for the issue to roll out her plans to get back in shape (!) and try to return to the Olympics in 2016 with new partner April Ross. Her comeback hit a snag last week when Walsh Jennings and Ross were eliminated in a tournament in Gstaad, Switzerland. It was their first competitive test together.

Previously on LA Observed:
Three-peat for Misty and Kerri
Kerri Walsh, now a mother of two, is back to try it again
Maybe Sam Zell won: LAT's '50 best butts' in sports
Representing the beach — Olympic champions