My final was Pestova '95 over Miller '07.

Pestova '95 brought back good memories.

ha, she really doesn't have a very pretty face. Obviously banging terts though.

shes hawt

LOL at Naomi Campbell getting less than 3% in the first round. Racists reading SI!!

Girl that I was friends with in elementary school designed the bikini that Brooklyn Decker is wearing on the cover. Her name is Bettina Bell and she was on ABC's The Bachelor a couple years ago.

Bettina on The Bachelor

i could design a bikini that looks good on brooklyn decker i think.

You gotta admit it's a pretty shoddy pic of her.

Heidi Klum in the blue top all the way in that bracket. I'm quite partial to her.

Decker's face, as others have pointed out, seems to look better when she's not in photoshoots. That's a bit weird, but whatever, she's still great. I also like Jessica Gomes, in terms of more recent models.

Bar-Brinkley final for me with Bar winning.

Nemcova '05 vs Pestova 95, Nemcova wins but there are no losers

Banks 97 Decker 07 semi-final losers

ugliest bitch I've ever seen

i had banks / miller (cowboy hat pic ftw) and gave up. i don't see how nobody else had banks over bar, tyra is crazy and obnoxious now but she was foiiiiine back in the day

I had Banks over Bar in the semis or whatever.

Can't believe so many people picked the other girl over Tieggs '77. I mean, you can see her tlts through the suit!

Ireland 1985 ftw

That photo and I have a close personal relationship.

I thought Kathy Ireland was awesome when I was 13 or so and now she doesn't interest me at all. I have no idea why that is.

EDIT:
I will back you up on this one Mr. rye.

They dont want to do same girl on the cover 2 years in a row?

The right bracket was a joke compared to the left bracket.

Klum 99 over Banks 97 in the finals. Klum 98 and Refeali 07 as 3rd and 4th even though they went out in the quarters. Stupid seeding imo.

Actually Klum 98 would probably finish 2nd, even, I dunno.

I thought the brackets sucked in general. Didn't even have the best Elle or Paulina pics in there at all. Some of the photos are just plain dumb or boring. It's just amazing how they can so frequently take such hot chicks and go out of their way to make them look less attractive than they really are.

For me, Bar is the hottest by far. But that's just me.

I was watching MSNBC the other night and they were talking about the swimsuit issue. Apparently the people at SI think the "exotic locals" is the reason the swimsuit issue is so popular. Yea, that's it. People want to see backround shots of some random beach. The smoking hot models have nothing to do with it. The woman in charge of the issue said it's a year long production. Big surprise, she can't budget time. She even went month by month on what they do for the issue. It's stuff OOT could probably get done in a week.

Matt - Agree. I've seen such stories and interviews about the swimsuit issue before and while I admittedly know nothing about photography or modeling they just come across as being stupidly and ludicrously out of touch.

No you idiots....the sandy beaches or other exotic locations have nothing to do with the success of the swimsuit issue. Guys like looking at hot chicks in skimpy bikinis. And it became big during a time when it was more acceptable to have something like that than regular old porn because it came as part of a sports magazine. It's not nearly as big now as it was back then but it still lives on from its legendary status of the 70's and 80's.

You can whine all you want about how tough it is to do the issue and how long it takes but it's just stupid and any normal thinking person knows it.

And if you can't figure out that the 14 year old boys who "used" the issue and were so responsible for making it as big as it was weren't particularly interested in the beautiful water backdrops or sunsets then I don't know what to tell you. Half the boys in high school weren't taping up the pictures to their lockers because of the pretty f***ing sunsets. Are they really that out of touch? Well, it seems so. Which is also likely why they can't figure out which pictures are actually the good ones.

If it was so much more about the background then just take pictures of the beautiful country-side. "Hey everybody....I want to see the trees and the water and the sand! Get those hot chicks with the big boobs out of the way!"

They even said that tourism in Chili went up 30% since they shot some issue there a few years ago. LOL, ok. I'm sure there were no other factors involved. When the woman was talking about preparing for the issue she talked about what was done each month. Like June was to pick the models, July the hotels, August the photographers, September the swimsuits, October the storyline, ect. WTF?

If I were an SI exec I would look at that interview and say, "this is ******ed. Fire that idiot and hire somebody who doesn't take a whole damn month to book a hotel. Is this really why we're paying them that much?"

Also...the country is Chile (with an e). And tourism in that region is generally up because of some more modern hotels and a better economy and the countries marketing themselves. The lack of crazy political coups and all that wacky terrorism tends to help a bit too. Tourism is up significantly in Peru too...and contrary to how SI might want to spin it I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the fact that it borders the country where they took the swimsuit photos.

This is pissing me off and has me re-thinking my position on vantek's thread about being friends with people dumber than you. These SI swimsuit people are just bizarre and to even consider mentioning a tourism increase much less actually saying it on national TV and also implying that it is somehow linked to your glorious presence there pretty much ensures I couldn't be friends with any of those ******s.

Goddammit. I spelled Chile wrong. I could understand if I ate at Chili's today but I can't even use that as an excuse.

Bob,
Why do you assume they want to tell the truth? It's totally in their interest to say that they increased tourism in Chile even if it's obviously not true.

You're also making two big mistakes wrt the whole beaches vs. boobs debate:

1) They know the boobs are what people are looking for. They're just not saying it.
2) A nice beach in the background really does make more people buy the magazine... even people who think they're buying it for the boobs.