November 28, 2003  eSLASHculture 2.44

-The following is an excerpt from the November, 2003 issue of Peak Performance: The Official Journal of the American Association of Athletic Trainers.

Backstage At the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show:        Model/Athletes Pushed to the Limit

By Stanley "Rock" Rogers

    The Victoria's Secret Lingerie Fashion Show:  to the casual viewer, the annual televised spectacle is a glitzy parade of scantily clad supermodels.  The rail thin glamour girls look like they have just rolled out of bed after a long night of shagging their rock star boyfriends and then just pulled a on a silky little sweet nothing for a stroll down the runway.  However, the real story behind the scenes couldn't be further from the truth. 

    Peak Performance was recently allowed full access to this year's show, and what we found surprised us.  We spent the day with Victoria's Secret's head athletic trainer Louis "Big Lou" D'amico.  "Big Lou" as he is known to all backstage is a big, affable bear of a man well known in the athletic trainer community for his tremendously successful ten year stint as Head Trainer and Director of Athletic Conditioning for the Green Bay Packers.  When he greeted us at 5:00 AM backstage for warm ups and treatments, D'amico was frank. 

    "I know what you're going to say.  These girls are just a bunch of chain-smoking, Diet Coke-chugging floozies paid to strut around in their skivvies like hookers.  Well, let me tell you  that these girls are the most superbly conditioned athletes I have ever worked with.  Just take a look at Tyra Banks over there."

    The supermodel was hunched over in the corner of the treatment room half immersed in the whirlpool, her face a mask of pain.  "She came in at 4:00AM this morning on crutches.  She has a really severe hip pointer.  The ligamentous damage is extensive, and the pain is excruciating.  The doctors told her to stay off it for two weeks.  When I was with the Packers, I saw Reggie White miss three games including the conference championship with the same injury, but just look at Tyra.  She's tough as a boot.  When the whistle blows and the pressure is on, she will be out there strutting down the runway like a two dollar lap dancer.  No one will ever know what she goes through.  I have to tape her up solid before every segment then the docs will shoot her full pain killers just so she can manage to pull on that red silk brocade cropped bustier with the matching silk charmeuse seamless thong.  I don't know how she does it."

    As the models come in over the course of the morning, the dedication and commitment the girls showed was awesome.  People only see the massive hair and the cavernous cleavage, but there is much more to these intense young athletes.  In the weight room, I saw Giselle Bunchen bench press 275 pounds dressed only in a ribbon mesh demi bra and a lace trim Rio tanga while Naomi Cambell in a tiger lace teddy spotted her in between doing four sets of 45 pound butterfly curls.  Over in the corner of the weight room, Czech beauty Petra Nimcovich worked out on a speed bag dressed only in a blue satin mesh babydoll, her hands a blur and her taut body the very picture of concentration and finely tuned athleticism.  The incredible definition of her lats and delts is no coincidence, but D'amico says that diet, training, and good old fashioned sweat are the secret to the models' incredible physiques.

    "The fact is that just three years ago before I came on board there was a well-known joke in the industry:  What is Victoria's Secret?  The answer:  anabolic steroids.  Well, not anymore.  An industry-wide ban on performance enhancing drugs is strictly observed by our crew.  We test, we observe, and we suspend, if necessary. "

    As D'amico spoke, models Karina, Allissanrdra, and Astrid strolled by in matching sheer chiffon camis and g-strings and dropped off fresh urine samples on the trainer's desk.  "Honestly, what kind of a message would blood doping send to the impressionable young girls all over America who  look up to the Victoria's Secret models as role models?  Breast implants, liposuction , and butt lifts are one thing, but steroids?  No way!  Not on our team."  

    With the show about to begin, the tension backstage was palpable.  Cries of pain rang out as last minute bikini waxings and collagen lip injections were performed.  Swarms of breast wranglers and thong technicians swarmed around the girls stuffing, pushing, and pulling until these sinewy, highly conditioned athletes were transformed into the slatternly, wanton sex objects you see on television.  Once the show started, D'amico kicked into high gear.  Lingerie modeling is, in fact, a highly demanding contact sport.  During the first segment  "Congo Harem," Angela Lindvahl suffered a brutal high ankle sprain.  After a dramatic pivot at the end of the runway, the six foot train on her leopard print and lace trim babydoll caught on her six inch stiletto heel.  As the ligaments tore, Angela fell to her knees.  The crowd may have thought it was all part of the show , but she barely made it backstage.  D'amico rushed to meet her.  The x-rays were negative, but he diagnosed the interosseous ligament tear.  With just minutes to work, he fitted a polyurethene brace on, injected the joint with a 3% lidocaine solution, and then helped her slide on the thigh high silver latex hip boots for the "Space Bordello" segment.  Amazingly in just moments, she was back out there giving it her all in a silver rhinestone o-ring panty.

    Disaster struck again during the "Cowgirls in Love" segment when Talisa's whip got tangled with Heidi Klum's spurs as they exited stage right.  The two supermodels tumbled down the eight steps in a blur of cheap lace and gaudy fabric.  D'amico rushed over and found Klum tangled in a constricting knot of g-strings, garters, and bra straps.  The German supermodel couldn't free herself.  Crying out in pain, she begged, "Cut me, Big Lou, cut me!"  With a flash of his bandage scissors, D'amico untangled the models, and the team of trainers carried them to the triage area.  Fortunately, the accident occurred right before the intermission.  As pathetic, has been ex-rocker Sting dueted with Mary J. Blige, D'amico and his crew worked to save the show as the finale loomed just moments away. 

    The news was bad for Klum.  She had sustained a deep thigh bruise and a grade three medial collateral ligament tear.  Though clearly in pain, the Aryan dreamgirl refused to come out. With an ice bag on her glutes, D'amico fashioned a brace for her knee out of a ruched hipster thong and covered it with a leather garter belt and latex fetish stockings.  Though stiff, she was up and hobbling back towards the runway.  Talisa's injury was much worse.  The collision had dislocated her left breast implant rotating it up and out so it lay bunched up on her left shoulder blade in a big lump.  Though translators explained to her the risks of going back onstage, the scrappy Brazilian refused to stand down.  Despite vigorous traction, D'amico couldn't manage to pop the implant back into place.  Instead with a grimace, Talissa shifted her red lace and satin balconet bra over and slapped a matching red feather boa over her shoulder holding it in place with toupee tape to conceal the displaced silicone sac.  Gingerly slipping on her fishnet stockings and a sexy little triple bow thong, she was back onstage hitting her mark right on cue.

    "I've worked with plenty of NFL tough guys, but these gals are real warriors.  If Brett Farve  took the kind of punishment they do, there is no way you would ever see him back on his feet and prancing down a walkway in just a seamless low rise V-string and a lace and pleather half cup bra," D'amico said backstage after the show. 

    With all the celebrities and designers gone and the auditorium empty, the locker room was filled with models getting treatment.  Painful welts from underwire bras were iced down.  Liniments were applied to buttocks and crotches rubbed raw by the cheap fabric of the g-strings and garters.  Teams of trainers staffed the massage tables as dozens of augmented breasts were worked back into shape after being squeezed, smashed, and deformed by wonder bras.

    "It might not be pretty, but this is just business as usual at Victoria's Secret, " D'amic mused.  "As soon as we get the team patched up and rolling again, it will be time to start loading up for the International Thong Expositon in Milan on Wednesday."  As Heidi Klum, the heart of the team, limped by in a satin jacquard corset too exhausted to undo the laces and pull off the gaudy garment, she gave D'amico a high five and a slap on the butt.  "There's no quit in these girls," Da'amico said with admiration in his voice.  "Every night they come to play, they strap it on, and they go out there and give it 110%.  To any guy who says these athletes are just a bunch of coked up mannequins, I say walk a mile in their pearl and gold chained thongs, my friend."