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30 Most Famous Women Athletes Of All Time

Throughout history, women athletes have shattered world records and left an indelible mark on the world of sports. Their exceptional talent, unwavering determination, and remarkable achievements have made them household names. These women athletes have also gone ahead to inspire generations of athletes. These women have repeatedly proven that gender is no obstacle to greatness.

Their impact extends far beyond the confines of their respective sports, transcending boundaries and breaking down barriers for women worldwide.
From the tennis superstar Serena Williams to the trailblazing feats of soccer icon Mia Hamm, these women have shattered glass ceilings and are continually raising the bar for excellence. In this article, we feature these and many other women athletes who continue leaving a mark in the world of sports.

1. Serena Williams

Serena Williams is an American retired professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. She won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time.

She is the only player to accomplish a Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles. She won the Laureus Sportswoman of the Year award a record four times in 2003, 2010, 2016, and 2018, and in December 2015 was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine. She is the highest-earning woman athlete of all time. Read more amazing facts about Serena Williams. 

2. Mia Hamm

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Mia is a former American professional soccer player, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion. Hailed as a soccer icon, she was a forward for the United States women’s national soccer team from 1987 to 2004. A co-owner of Los Angeles FC, Hamm is also a global ambassador for FC Barcelona and is on the board of directors of Serie A club A.S. Roma.

Hamm was the face of the Women’s United Soccer Association, the first professional women’s soccer league in the United States, where she played for the Washington Freedom from 2001 to 2003. Author of Go For the Goal: A Champion’s Guide to Winning in Soccer and Life, Hamm has been featured in several films and television shows, including the HBO documentary, Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.

3. Simone Biles

Biles is an American artistic gymnast. Her seven Olympic medals tied with Shannon Miller for the most Olympic medals won by an American gymnast and is the equal ninth-most overall.

Having won 25 World Championship medals, she is the most decorated gymnast in the history of the Gymnastics World Championships and is considered by many sources to be the greatest gymnast of all time. In 2022, Biles was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Joe Biden.

4. Steffi Graf

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Steffi is a German former professional tennis player. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in women’s singles for a record 377 weeks and won 22 major singles titles, the second-most since the start of the Open Era in 1968 and the third-most of all-time.

In 1988, Graf became the first tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam by winning all four major singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year. Furthermore, she is the only tennis player, male or female, to have won each major tournament at least four times.

5. Lindsey Vonn

Lindsey Vonn is an American former World Cup alpine ski racer on the US Ski Team. She won four World Cup overall championships third amongst female skiers to Annemarie Moser-Pröll and Mikaela Shiffrin with three consecutive titles in 2008, 2009, and 2010, plus another in 2012.

Vonn won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, the first one for an American woman. In 2016, she won her 20th World Cup crystal globe title, the overall record for men or women, surpassing Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden, who won 19 globes from 1975 to 1984. She has the third highest super ranking of all skiers, men or women.

6. Ronda Rousey

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Ronda Rousey is an American professional wrestler, actress, former judoka, and mixed martial artist. She is currently signed to WWE, where she performs on the Raw brand and is the current WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion in her first reign with Shayna Baszler. She is also the eighth Women’s Triple Crown Champion.

Rousey is the only woman to be the champion in both the UFC and WWE as well as the only woman to headline a pay-per-view event in both companies. She was voted the best female athlete of all time in a 2015 ESPN fan poll, and Fox Sports described her as one of the defining athletes of the 21st century.

7. Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Joyner-Kersee is a retired American track and field athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the heptathlon as well as the long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals in those two events at four different Olympic Games.

Joyner-Kersee was voted the Greatest Female Athlete of All-Time. She is on the board of directors for USA Track & Field, the national governing body of the sport. Joyner-Kersee is one of the most famous athletes to have overcome severe asthma. In March 2023, she was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame.

8. Michelle Kwan

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Michelle Kwan is a retired competitive figure skater and diplomat serving as United States Ambassador to Belize. In figure skating, Kwan is a two-time Olympic medalist (silver in 1998, bronze in 2002), a five-time World champion (1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003) and a nine-time U.S. champion (1996, 1998–2005). She is tied with Maribel Vinson for the all-time National Championship record.

For well over a decade, Kwan maintained her status not only as America’s most popular figure skater but as one of America’s most popular female athletes. From 1997 to 2005, she was the U.S. Figure Skating Association’s top-paid skater in appearance fees and prize money, as well as one of the highest-paid Winter Olympic athletes in endorsements. Kwan was also the highest-paid skater on the Champions on Ice tours.

9. Martina Navratilova

Navratilova is a Czech–born American former professional tennis player. Widely considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, Navratilova won 18 major singles titles, 31 major women’s doubles titles, and 10 major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 59 major titles, the most in the Open Era. Navratilova dominated women’s tennis in the 1970s and 1980s.

Navratilova was ranked as the world No. 1 in singles for a total of 332 weeks, and for a record 237 weeks in doubles, making her the only player in history to have held the top spot in both disciplines for over 200 weeks.

10. Annika Sörenstam

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Annika is a Swedish professional golfer. She is regarded as one of the best female golfers in history. Before stepping away from competitive golf at the end of the 2008 season, she had won 90 international tournaments as a professional, making her the female golfer with the most wins to her name.

She has won 72 official LPGA tournaments including ten majors and 24 other tournaments internationally. After turning 50, she came back from her retirement and added a win in the 2021 U.S. Senior Women’s Open. In 2003, she achieved a career grand slam, winning, at least once in her career, each of the four tournaments recognized as major championships during the main part of her career. Click here for Top 10 Facts about Annika Sörenstam. 

11. Marta Vieira da Silva

Marta is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for the Orlando Pride in the National Women’s Soccer League and the Brazil national team. Marta is often regarded as the greatest female footballer of all time. She has been named FIFA World Player of the Year six times, five of them being consecutive (from 2006 through 2010) and the latest award coming in 2018.

Marta holds the record for being Brazil’s top international goalscorer of any gender, with 115 goals. With 17 goals, Marta also holds the record for most goals scored in the FIFA World Cup tournament. Moreover, she was the first footballer of any gender to score at five World Cup editions, a feat matched by Christine Sinclair in 2019 and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2022, and also the first female footballer to score at five consecutive Olympic Games.

12. Billie Jean King

Billie is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women’s doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States team in seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups.

For three years, she was the U.S. captain in the Federation Cup.
Regarded by many as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987. The Fed Cup Award of Excellence was bestowed on her in 2010.

13. Dorothy Hamill

Hamill’s first national success came in 1969 when she won the novice ladies title at the U.S. Championships at the age of 12. Later that spring, Hamill was invited to perform in Madison Square Garden with the exhibition tour in later years known as Champions on Ice that followed the 1969 World Figure Skating Championships.

She placed second at the junior level at the 1970 Championships and made her senior debut in 1971. The U.S. Figure Skating Association arranged for her to be coached by Carlo Fassi when she began to compete internationally.

14. Venus Williams

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Venus Williams is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is widely regarded as one of the all-time greats of the sport.
Williams trails only her sister Serena among active players with the most singles titles. With 22 WTA doubles titles and two mixed doubles titles, her combined total of 73 WTA titles is also second among active players behind Serena. She is also one of only two active players to have reached the singles finals of all four majors, along with Serena. Read more on 15 Best Female Tennis Players. 

15. Janet Evans

Janet is an American former competition swimmer who specialized in distance freestyle events. Evans was a world champion and world record-holder and won a total of four gold medals at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics.

At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, she won three individual gold medals, and she also earned the nickname “Miss Perpetual Motion”. In these Olympics, Evans set a new world record in the 400-meter freestyle event. This record stood for 18 years until France’s Laure Manaudou broke it in May 2006.

16. Wilma Rudolph

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Wilma was an American sprinter who become a world-record-holding Olympic champion and international sports icon in track and field following her successes in the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games. Rudolph was acclaimed as the fastest woman in the world in the 1960s and became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympic Games.

As an Olympic champion in the early 1960s, Rudolph was among the most highly visible black women in America and abroad. She became a role model for black and female athletes and her Olympic successes helped elevate women’s track and field in the United States.

17. Martina Hingis

Martina is a Swiss former professional tennis player. Hingis is the first Swiss player, male or female, to win a major title and attain a world No. 1 ranking. She spent a total of 209 weeks as the singles world No. 1 and 90 weeks as the doubles world No. 1, holding both No. 1 rankings simultaneously for 29 weeks.

She won five major singles titles, 13 major women’s doubles titles, including the Grand Slam in 1998, and seven major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 25 major titles. In addition, she won the season-ending WTA Finals two times in singles and three in doubles, an Olympic silver medal in doubles, and a record 17 Tier I singles titles. Read more amazing Facts about Martina Hingis. 

18. Hope Solo

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Hope is an American former football goalkeeper. She was a goalkeeper for the United States women’s national soccer team from 2000 to 2016 and is a World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist.

Solo is regarded as one of the top female goalkeepers of all time and currently holds the U.S. record for most career clean sheets. She was the starting goalkeeper for the majority of the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and helped lead the U.S. national team to the semifinals having given up only two goals in four games, including three consecutive shutouts.

19. Chris Evert

Chris Evert is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. Evert won 18 major singles titles, including a record seven French Open titles and a joint-record six US Open titles tied with Serena Williams.

She was ranked world No. 1 for 260 weeks and was the year-end world No. 1 singles player seven times 1974–78, 1980, and 1981. Alongside Martina Navratilova, her greatest rival, Evert dominated women’s tennis in the 1970s and 1980s.

20. Danica Patrick

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Danica is an American former professional racing driver. She is the most successful woman in the history of American open-wheel car racing, her victory in the 2008 Indy Japan 300 is the only win by a woman in an IndyCar Series race.

Patrick began racing stock cars in 2010 in the NASCAR Nationwide Series with her best result coming in the form of a fourth-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2011. She placed a career-high tenth in the 2012 season standings and was the second woman to clinch a pole position in the Nationwide Series after Shawna Robinson in 1994.

21. Shawna Robinson

Shawna is an American retired professional stock car racing driver. She was a competitor in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series, as well as the ARCA Bondo/Mar-Hyde Series and the Charlotte/Daytona Dash Series. Robinson is one of 16 women to participate in the NASCAR Cup Series, and one of three females to race in the sport’s premier event, the Daytona 500.

22. Yelena Isinbayeva

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Yelena is a Russian former pole vaulter. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist, a three-time World Champion, the world record holder in the event, and is widely considered the greatest female pole-vaulter of all time.

Isinbayeva was banned from the 2016 Rio Olympics after revelations of an extensive state-sponsored doping program in Russia, thus dashing her hopes of a grand retirement after winning the Olympic gold medal. She retired from athletics in August 2016 after being elected to serve an 8-year term on the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission.

23. Althea Gibson

Althea was an American tennis player and professional golfer, and one of the first Black athletes to cross the color line of international tennis. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title. The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals, then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years.

Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. “She is one of the greatest players who ever lived”, said Bob Ryland, a tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus and Serena Williams. In the early 1960s, she also became the first Black player to compete on the Women’s Professional Golf Tour.

24. Mary Lou Retton

Mary is an American retired gymnast. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she won a gold medal in the individual all-around competition, as well as two silver medals and two bronze medals.

Her performance made her one of the most popular athletes in the United States. Her gold medal win was historic as Retton was the first American woman to win the all-around gold medal in Olympic gymnastics.

25. Florence Griffith Joyner

Florence was an American track and field athlete. She set world records in 1988 for the 100 m and 200 m. During the late 1980s, she became a popular figure due to both her record-setting athleticism and eclectic personal style.

Florence made her Olympic debut, winning a silver medal in the 200-meter distance at the 1984 Olympics held in Los Angeles. At the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, Griffith set a new world record in the 100-meter sprint. She went on to win three gold medals at the 1988 Olympics.

26. Babe Didrikson Zaharias

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Zaharias was an American athlete who excelled in golf, basketball, baseball, and track and field. She won two gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Summer Olympics before turning to professional golf and winning 10 LPGA major championships.

Didrikson gained world fame in track and field and All-American status in basketball. She played organized baseball and softball and was an expert diver, roller-skater, and bowler.

27. Diana Taurasi

Diana is an American professional basketball player for the Phoenix Mercury of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and is considered to be one of the greatest female basketball players of all time. She was drafted by Phoenix first overall in the 2004 WNBA draft.

On June 18, 2017, Taurasi became the WNBA all-time leading scorer and on June 27, 2021, became the first player to surpass 9,000 points. Her penchant for scoring in crucial situations has earned her the nickname “White Mamba”, coined by Kobe Bryant. Taurasi is one of 11 women to win an Olympic gold medal, an NCAA Championship, a FIBA World Cup gold and a WNBA Championship.

28. Mia St. John

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Mia is an American professional boxer and former World Boxing Council champion in the super welterweight division. She is also the IBA and IFBA lightweight champion. She is also a model, businesswoman, and taekwondo champion.
On June 12, 2005, and after 47 professional bouts and 9 years, St. John was given a title bout with Liz Drew.

St. John won by unanimous decision, earning the International Female Boxers Association lightweight world title. She followed this win with a unanimous decision over Donna Biggers in August, winning the IBA continental lightweight title.

29. Nadia Comaneci

Nadia is a Romanian retired gymnast and a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events. In 1976, at the age of 14, Comăneci was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games.

At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, she received six more perfect 10s for events en route to winning three gold medals. At the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Comăneci won two more gold medals and achieved two more perfect 10s. During her career, Comăneci won nine Olympic medals and four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship medals.

30. Maria Sharapova

Maria is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. She competed on the WTA Tour from 2001 to 2020 and was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks.

She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to achieve the career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having won silver in women’s singles at the 2012 London Olympics. She has been considered as one of the best competitors of her generation.