The Most Inspiring Olympic Women Of All Time
In celebration of women’s history month and the Tokyo Olympics, we've gathered the most inspiring and impactful women from the Olympic History. The Olympics are a part of our history and we want to share that history with you.
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Hélène de Pourtalès
Starting with Hélène because she became the first woman to compete at the Olympic Games and became the first female Olympic champion, as a member of the winning team in the first 1 to 2 ton sailing event on May 22, 1900. This was the very first time women were allowed to participate in Olympic games, only 2.2% of the total were women and now Tokyo 2020 is projected that 48.8% will be women
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Chloe Kim
Chloe was the youngest woman to win a gold medal in Snowboarding at the Olympic games. She became the youngest woman to ever land two 1080-degree spins in a row at the Olympics. She is now pursuing science at Princeton University. She seems to be leading a pretty normal life with a gold medal under her belt.
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Chierika Ukogu
She is an American-born Nigerian professional rower, the first ever rower from Nigeria to be exact. During the 2015 FISA African Olympic Qualification Regatta, she qualified to represent Nigeria at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. She is a Philly native and started her rowing career on the Schuylkill, she was part of many teams around the country but, she started her career right at boathouse row. Check out the video below to see Chierika Repping her boathouse gear and hear her talk a little bit about her Olympic journey…
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Lindsay Vonn
Lindsay is considered one of the greatest skiers of all time, she has had over 80 world cup victories. Throughout her skiing journey, she has been seriously injured and was still able to make it back on top and win a gold medal at the Olympics surpassing men and women’s categories. She ultimately retired in 2019 due to another serious injury, but she will always be known as the best skier of all time.
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Ronda Rousey
Ronda is a professional wrestler and former Women’s MMA Fighter, Winning UFC and MMA Championships in her lifetime. Also, the only woman to headline a pay per view event. Along with these accomplishments, she attended the 2008 Olympics and medaled bronze in judo, being the first ever woman to do so in such a male dominated sport. She was later inducted into the UFC Hall of fame in 2018.
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Simone Biles
Named the Greatest Gymnast of all time, this was a hard title to beat but simone came out on top. Being the most decorated with 25 Olympic and world champion medals. She may be small but she is mighty and she is still going. It was announced in February that Simone will be representing the US in the Tokyo World cup and grab herself another gold medal in 2020.
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Ibtihaj Muhammad
She has not only broken barriers for women but she has also broken barriers for Muslum Women. She was the first Muslim American woman to participate in the Olympics wearing a hijab. Ibtihaj was part of the US Fencing team and became an Olympic medalist. Not only did she break down walls in history, she was so influential that there were books written about her, and even a Barbie doll was created to resemble Ibtihaj. She was able to influence Olympic culture and athletes are now expressing themselves with what they wear.
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