PHOTOS! Here are Katarina Witt’s Playboy pictures from 1998. Katarina Witt’s Playboy pics at the time were controversial. Today in the face of pics by Lindsey Vonn and other skaters splashed across men’s magazines for these Winter Olympics, it’s the norm.

Katarina Witt won gold in 1984 and 1988 along with 4 World Championships and 6 European Championships.

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At the time, the spread was seen as groundbreaking. Witt’s December 1998 issue was only the second issue to sell out in the magazine’s history, the first being Marilyn Monroe’s inaugural edition.

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The next year she won “Favorite Female Athlete in the United States” and “Favorite Female Skater of the Century”. Time magazine called her “the most beautiful face of socialism.”

She would appear in Ronin opposite De Niro and host Live Earth.

UPDATE: Lindsay Lohan’s own Playboy photos have been released now as well. Lohan tells Playboy in her interview that she continues to relate to Monroe and see similarities between the actress and herself. She adds “Looking back, I probably would have listened to and taken more advice from the people whom I admire and would have followed through with it more.”

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Lohan is, yet, again looking back at her previous troubles. “My stubbornness at 18- and 19-years-old got in the way,” she said. “During the past five years, I’ve learned that time flies faster than you think, and because you only live once you have to learn from your mistakes, live your dreams and be accountable.”

Lohan, however, is not quoted by Playboy for seeing a similarity between her and Monroe for acting roles. Lohan years earlier was garnering millions of dollars per year for her acting. She earned a 2007 Teen Choice nomination for Georgia Rule. At the time, she told news that she felt empowered by her acting like Monroe. But this time, she’s not saying that.

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Yet, Lohan claims that news focuses more on the celebrity and less on the actress. “I believe in myself and I’m a good actress.” Lohan appears this week on newsstands as Monroe.

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