A BIKINI-CLAD team of cheerleaders at the Olympic beach volleyball tournament are not proving popular with everyone. Fans arriving at the Olympic Beach Volleyball Centre by the Greek coast are being greeted by the sight of 12 women wearing skimpy, orange bikinis and dancing up a storm in the sand. Australian player Nicole Sanderson was not impressed. "It's disrespectful to have other girls in bikinis out there dancing," she said while her partner, Sydney gold medallist Natalie Cook, said that if there were men out on the court dancing it could equal things out. Organisers admit they use dancers in bikinis and sex appeal as much as athletic ability to sell the sport -- a demanding two-on-two form of volleyball made even more difficult by playing on sand. It has worked. Ever since it debuted as a medals-sport in Atlanta in 1996, beach volleyball has been one of the most popular spectator sports of the Games -- in part due to the bikinis worn by women players and the muscle-baring singlets for the men. At Bondi Beach in Australia in 2000, it attracted the fifth largest television audience of all the sports at the Games. The "dance team", which performs in between sets, matches and at most time-outs, is a common sight on the international beach volleyball tour but rare at traditional Olympic events. On the first day of the Athens preliminary-round matches, the dancers revved up the boisterous, beer-drinking crowd of several thousand who clapped, cheered and sang along to "Highway to Hell" between points. A disc-jockey blasted rock-and-roll and 1950s beach music in between each point and announcers egged on the crowd in Greek and English. Noting that beach volleyball fans would never hear requests for "quiet please" at a match, the announcers urged fans to stand and get rowdy in support of the players. "Come on everybody, clap your hands," yelled the announcer during a men's match between Canada and Switzerland. "Stomp, stomp, clap, clap."
