Inspirational sports person: Serena Williams
This week’s inspirational sports person is Serena Williams. I have chosen her because of her journey to become one of the world’s greatest tennis players. She is widely known and has worked immensely hard in order to get where she is today. She has 4 Olympic gold medals and 4 Grand Slams to her name, and won sports-person of the year by the magazine ‘Sports Illustrated’. The reason she is such an inspiration to me is because throughout her journey despite having received racism and sexism from fans and tennis administrators, she is still so strong and it takes a lot of mental strength to overcome these challenges and use them positively in order to make you, and your game stronger.
Additionally, in the recent US Open in September 2018 she called out a double-standard and challenged the way society thinks women should behave when playing sport in comparison to men. During the finals match against Osaka, Williams received a code violation for racquet abuse (hitting her racquet on the floor), but as later summarised in an interview “when a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalised for it. When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions”. I think that she is an inspiration, not only to sport players but to all people out there.
Emily Ng,
Swimming rep