Same strokes, different folks.

It was an oddity of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team: Two 14-year-old swimmers made the squad in the very same event.

Charlotte's Jilen Siroky finished second in the 200-meter breaststroke that year at the Olympic trials. Amanda Beard, who in 1996 always carried a teddy bear named Harold to the starting blocks, finished first.

Of the two, Beard has been the one who has drawn the lion's share of attention ever since. She won two silver medals in 1996 in Atlanta, and since then has ignored the swimming theory that says women breaststrokers nearly always peak as teenagers.

Beard made her fourth Olympic team a month ago, at age 26. She already has seven Olympic medals – at least one of every color. She has dated NASCAR driver Carl Edwards.

And she has posed for Playboy. That was in the July 2007, with Beard on the cover and a headline that roared “The World's Sexiest Athlete – Nude.”

Beard, who couldn't be reached for comment for this story, has previously explained those pictures as a “business decision.” They certainly sent ripples through the swimming community.

Said David Marsh, the well-known Charlotte swim coach who placed two Olympians on the 2008 squad but has never coached Beard: “Amanda has made some adult choices that most swimming coaches wouldn't be very excited about, for our swimmers or for our children. But she has an amazing way of keeping the swimming community completely in love with her, because she has a very endearing personality.”

Although Beard and Siroky knew each other as teammates in 1996, they were never close and haven't stayed in touch.

“We've always been very different people,” Siroky said, “even though we were grouped together a lot as ‘the 14-year-olds' in 1996. I think it's amazing what Amanda has accomplished in the pool.”

As for the Playboy cover?

“Whoa,” Siroky said. “I was pretty surprised. Amanda is just living in a completely different world than me now – one I can't really understand.”