A person possessing the natural or acquired traits, such as strength, agility, and endurance, that are necessary for physical exercise or sports, especially those performed in competitive contexts.
An athlete is an individual who, by virtue of special training or natural talent, is fit to compete in a physically demanding sport. The term is derived from the Latin word "athleta", referring to a person who competed in physical exercises for a prize.

An athlete thought to have a lot of natural talent is often called a "born athlete". Such an athlete usually exhibits great proficiency in a range of physical activities, apparently after little practice. Most great athletes are genetically endowed with high athletic potential, but this potential is rarely realized without many years of hard and dedicated training. Great athletes, therefore, are generally made, not born.

Here are some and name of a few sexy athletes in different fields of expertise...

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (born April 19, 1987) is a Russian professional tennis player. At the end of 2006, she was the world's highest-paid female athlete. Sharapova's parents moved from Homyel, Belarus, to Siberia, Russia, in 1986, after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. She was born the following year in Nyagan, Russia. At seven, Sharapova was brought to the United States by her father, Yuri Sharapov, to attend the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Her mother, Yelena, who could not come with them because of visa restrictions, followed a few years later. Sharapova has lived in the United States since then but retains her Russian citizenship.

In 2002, Sharapova bought a beach home in Manhattan Beach, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, but lives most of the year near the IMG training facility in Bradenton.
Maria has been labeled as a power baseliner by tennis critics and fans. She is noted for having an excellent double-handed backhand and serves, particularly for the power and placement of these shots.

She is also noted for having a good forehand. Likewise, critics claim that for her height, Sharapova has decent agility on-court. Being an offensive player, Sharapova is usually able to overpower her opponents or keep them on the run with sharp angles from the baseline.
Sharapova is ambidextrous and played left-handed until she was ten years old, before deciding to play right-handed. Although she almost always employs a right-handed forehand and double-handed backhand, she has one of the most accurate double-handed backhand shots and is known to occasionally hit left-handed shots as a result of her early left-handed training

Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova (Russian: Анна Сергеевна Курникова, Ánna Sergéyevna Kúrnikova; born June 7, 1981) is a former Russian professional tennis player. She was one of the best known tennis players, even among those who do not follow the game.

Presently, she resides in Miami, Florida. An only child, Anna was born in Moscow, Russia to Alla and Sergei Kournikov; her family later emigrated to the United States.

Anna's major-league tennis career has been curtailed for the past several years by serious back & spinal problems, and this might be the end of it. Anna has had some success at the singles game, but her specialty has been doubles, where she has become the world's #1 doubles player at times, and she has won Grand Slam titles in Australia in 1999 and 2002, with Martina Hingis as her partner. Kournikova's two Grand Slam doubles titles came in 1999 and 2002, both at the Australian Open in the Women's Doubles event with partner Martina Hingis, with whom she played frequently starting in 1999. Kournikova proved a successful doubles player on the professional circuit, winning 16 tournament doubles titles, including two Australian Opens and being a finalist in mixed doubles at the U.S. Open and at Wimbledon, and reaching the No.1 ranking in doubles in the Women's Tennis Association tour rankings. Her pro career doubles record was 200–71. However, her singles career plateaued after 1999. For the most part, she managed to retain her ranking between 10 and 15 (her career high singles ranking was No.8), but her expected finals breakthrough failed to occur; she only reached four finals out of 130 singles tournaments, never in a Grand Slam event, and never won one. Her singles record is 209–129. Her final playing years were marred by a string of injuries, especially back injuries, which caused her ranking to erode gradually.

Anna Djambulilovna Chakvetadze Russian born March 5, 1987 is a Russian professional tennis player (with Georgian roots[1]). On September 10, 2007, she reached her career-high professional singles ranking of World No. 5. As of June 8, 2009, she is ranked World No. 32.

She began playing tennis at the age of eight after being introduced to the sport by her mother, Natalia. She travels for tournaments with her father. She speaks both Russian and English. In 2009 Chakvetadze was seeded 17th at the Australian Open where she lost in the second round to Jelena Dokic 6–4, 6–7(4), 6–3. She also lost the opening round of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships to Ayumi Morita.

At the Rome Masters, Chakvetadze lost a close three setter to Venus Williams in the third round. At the Madrid Masters, she defeated Virginia Ruano-Pascual in the first round. She then defeated Samantha Stosur in the second round, coming back from 4-1 down in the third set. She fell to Alona Bondarenko in the third round. Chakvetadze, who was seeded 26th at the French Open, suffered a first-round loss to Mariana Duque Marino in three sets 6–3, 4–6, 4–6, thus continuing her disastrous run.

In the grass court season, Chakvetadze was able to raise her game in the first round in Eastbourne, where she defeated a third seeded Jelena Jankovic 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2. She lost to Marion Bartoli in the second round.

Chakvetadze was seeded 32nd at the 2009 Wimbledon Championships. She lost to Sabine Lisicki in the first round 4-6, 7-6, 6-2.

Melanie Adams is 20-years-old and has been pole vaulting since she was 11-years-old. She currently plans to compete in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and the 2012 London Olympics. Her role models are Cathy Freeman and Tatiana Grigorieva. She has won two national under age titles. Melanie Adams is not only a potential Olympic pole vaulter, she was a finalist for Miss Teen Australia and has her sights set on the Miss Universe pageant. I think she’s got potential for whatever she sets those brown eyes on!

Melanie’s 2007 personal-best was 3.8 metres. She had a set-back in 2007 when she broke her foot but is back to working on her sport. She is also pursuing a career in modeling.

Maria Yuryevna Kirilenko a Russian born in Moscow on January 25, 1987, is a Russian professional tennis player. Kirilenko won her first WTA Tour title in 2005, defeating Anna-Lena Grönefeld 6–3, 6–4 in the China Open. Kirilenko reached #18, her career-high singles ranking, on the WTA tour in July 2008. She won the junior event at the 2002 Canadian Open, as well as the 2002 US Open junior tournament. Maria Kirilenko started showing a passion towards tennis at age 5, but it was difficult to get the practice in while she was attending school. Her father enrolled her in a tennis school, and hours of fierce training started to pay off as she won several tournaments. When Kirilenko was twelve years old, an Honored Master of sports, Elena Brioukhovets, saw her while training. All the next year Elena watched Maria making progress and then offered to work together with her. A three-year program was made and a special team was selected. In less than three years Maria became the number one in her age group and the number two in the group under eighteen. The well-known tennis-players Yevgeni Kafelnikov, Andrei Olhovskiy and Max Mirnyi, who had created an organization supporting young tennis-players, helped Kirilenko to arrange her training-process and to attend tournaments. In 2002 Kirilenko became one of the youngest winners of the Canadian Open and the US Open Junior Tournaments.

In 2006, Kirilenko was selected to be the face of Adidas by Stella McCartney tennis range, designed by noted British fashion designer Stella McCartney and has played exclusively in the gear since the 2006 Australian Open. 20000 Like her good friend Maria Sharapova, she likes connecting athletics and fashion, and when she spoke to Teen Vogue in August 2006, she said of being dressed by McCartney for a banquet, "I felt so glamorous!". She appeared in the 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition alongside Daniela Hantuchova and Tatiana Golovin in a pictoral entitled Volley of the Dolls