“I was supposed to stay in juniors,” she admitted with a smile to a Los Angeles Times reporter a few months later. “But I had a little urge to go into seniors.” Michelle had taken matters into her own hands, and even her coach couldn’t help but admire her guts. “It shows a little bit that she has strength inside,” he conceded.
At that year’s U.S. National Figure Skating Championships, Michelle became the youngest senior competitor in two decades. She would go on to become the most decorated figure skater in U.S. history, winning five World Championships, nine U.S. National Championships, and two Olympic medals. She dominated her sport for over a decade, landing one triple jump after another and captivating audiences with her moving performances. On the ice and off, Michelle Kwan has come to embody grace and grit.
“My parents didn’t have the means to provide brand-new skates, flashy costumes, or ice time. They were barely juggling multiple jobs, providing a roof over our heads, feeding us, working at the restaurant… and then they gave me this crazy opportunity to ice skate! It seemed foolish at the time, but it was my dream to compete at the Olympic Games.”
—MICHELLE KWAN
Michelle was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of immigrants from China who came to the U.S. in the 1970s. Her father, Danny, worked for the phone company, and her mother, Estella, ran the Chinese restaurant that her family owned in a California suburb. When Michelle was just five years old, she and her sister, Karen, started taking skating lessons at a local ice rink. Both girls were talented and determined; before long, their lessons had gone from weekly to daily.
Figure skating is an expensive sport. There are the costumes, the skates, the ice time, the coaching. The Kwans sold their house in Rancho Palos Verdes and moved into one that Danny’s parents owned in Torrance to support their daughters’ skating. When Michelle and Karen earned scholarships to train at an elite rink a hundred miles away from home, Danny moved with them. Estella stayed back with their brother, Ron.
“I made it to the national championships in used skates that were custom-made for another girl,” Michelle said later. “I still have those skates. Underneath the arch, there was a name crossed out and my dad had ‘Michelle Kwan’ written in.… But I didn’t feel disadvantaged. I felt empowered because I had these opportunities. I was going to try to make the most of it.”
At sixteen, Michelle won her first U.S. National Championship and World Championship titles with programs that were both technically difficult and artistically beautiful. The next year, she didn’t fare as well, coming in second to an up-and-coming skater named Tara Lipinski. The year after that, despite months of struggling with injuries, a growth spurt, and her own self-confidence, Michelle, competing with a stress fracture in her foot, became the first woman in history to receive a perfect score for her short program at nationals.
Heading into the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, Michelle was the clear favorite to win. Comparing her to fifteen-year-old Lipinski, her biggest rival, reporters wrote and talked about Michelle as a mature, seasoned veteran—never mind the fact that she was just eighteen years old herself, incredibly young to carry the burden of such immense pressure. The unique expectations of the sport made it even harder: Figure skaters are expected to be beautiful, polite, and poised. Commentators loved that Lipinski broke into a delighted smile each time she landed a jump; Michelle skated with a more serious expression.
When it was her turn on the ice in Nagano, Michelle managed to shut it all out. She skated beautifully. But Lipinski also skated flawlessly and earned higher marks for the technical difficulty of her program. That night, the world saw two skaters, both at the top of their game, compete on the Olympic stage. When the results came in after the final competition, Michelle didn’t win gold, as so many people had predicted; she finished second to Lipinski.
Despite what must have been profound disappointment, Michelle rose to the occasion yet again. She was gracious as she congratulated her rival. As she said, “I didn’t lose the gold. I won the silver.” And then, true to form, Michelle got back to work. She kept pushing herself, kept training, and won a second gold medal at the World Championships a few months later. In 2002, she again made the Olympics, where she won the bronze medal.
After she retired from competitive skating, Michelle didn’t lose her focus; she simply shifted it. She went to college, then graduate school, earning a master’s degree in international relations. Then she put her degrees to good use, serving as a U.S. public envoy pursuing diplomacy through sports, and on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition under President Obama. She came to work as a senior adviser at the State Department when I was secretary of state, and I was impressed by her bright mind, incredible work ethic, and unfailingly cheerful personality. I was delighted when, a few years later, she came to work on my 2016 presidential campaign.
Today Michelle serves on the board of Special Olympics International, where she travels the world, talking about the difference this important organization, founded by Eunice Shriver, has made in bringing hope to so many people with intellectual disabilities and their families. To the delight of her Instagram followers, she has even gotten back on the ice. She is still involved in politics, having recently gone to work on her second presidential campaign.
Michelle is a role model not simply because of her talent, or her grace under pressure, or her composure after losing an important competition on the international stage. Her significance comes from something even more extraordinary: In a world where women, especially those in the public eye, are pigeonholed into being just one thing, Michelle has embraced complexity and seeming contradiction. She is proof that you can be more than one thing: powerful and graceful, fiercely competitive and a good sport, a student and an athlete, an Olympian and a public servant, pragmatic and an optimist.
“When I look back, I wouldn’t have changed anything,” she said when asked how it felt to not have won Olympic gold. “I couldn’t have worked harder. There was the dedication to the sport. The amazing family and team that I had. The mind-set, the drive, the motivation, the grit, it was all there. There was just that one thing. You can’t always be perfect.” Too true!
Venus and Serena Williams
VENUS WILLIAMS
SERENA WILLIAMS
Hillary and Chelsea
Venus and Serena Williams have a particular talent for shutting out the noise and nonsense and focusing on what really matters—whether it’s smashing records, winning titles, or advocating for people who will never have the kind of platform they do.
Over the years, they’ve had far too much practice honing this talent. For decades, the two world-class athletes who helped redefine the sport of tennis have dealt with sexism, racism, and body shaming. Reporters and commentators have tried to undermine their athletic abilities (as they have with so many other women athletes—especially black women athletes) by suggesting that they’re not women at all, or that they’re using performance-enhancing drugs. After Serena pushed back against an umpire’s suggestion that she was cheating in the 2018 U.S. Open final against Naomi Osaka (“I don’t cheat to win,” she protested, “I’d rather lose”) and became visibly frustrated on the court, an Australian newspaper published a racist cartoon depicting the events. (“Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop,” tweeted Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling.)
“We work hard and we learn from our losses. Because just like on the court, your losses teach you how to win.”
—VENUS WILLIAMS
“What others marked as flaws or disadvantages about myself—my race, my gender—I embraced as fuel for my success. I never let anything or anyone define me or my potential. I controlled my future.”
—SERENA WILLIAMS
Contrary to what their performance on the court might suggest, Venus and Serena aren’t superhuman. They have both spoken publicly about how painful it is to be on the rece
iving end of ugliness and hostility—and about their determination not to let it distract them from doing what they do best. “I felt defeated and disrespected by a sport that I love,” Serena wrote in Harper’s Bazaar of her experience at the 2018 U.S. Open. “One that I had dedicated my life to and that my family truly changed, not because we were welcomed, but because we wouldn’t stop winning.”
From the time they were toddlers in the early 1980s, Venus and Serena, with their parents’ support, were logging hours practicing on the public courts of Los Angeles. “Venus was older and playing tournaments,” recounted their sister Isha. “Venus was enrolled in this particular tournament, and Serena wasn’t. Unbeknownst to my dad and mom, Serena sent in the application and signed herself up for the tournament. Who does that?… Even then, she wanted to compete.” After a few years, the family moved to Florida so that the girls could get the elite-level coaching their talent and determination deserved. It paid off; both turned professional in the mid-1990s, before they graduated from high school. Venus led by example, pushing her little sister to work harder, never letting her win a friendly game. “My first job is big sister and I take that very seriously,” she said later.
Venus and Serena played with tenacity and heart, chasing after every ball, delivering powerful serves and ground strokes. In 1997, Venus defied expectations when she became the first unseeded U.S. Open women’s finalist, meaning she had not been ranked among the seeded players deemed most likely to win. In 2000, Venus won two Olympic gold medals in Sydney: one in singles and one in doubles, with Serena. That same year, Venus won the U.S. Open and Wimbledon. The next year, she did it again. In 2002, Serena followed suit.
CHELSEA
I was lucky enough to cheer for the Williams sisters in person during the 2000 Olympics and at multiple Grand Slam matches in the years since. I’m always inspired by their focus on the court and their support for each other there and everywhere else.
“The women in Billie Jean King’s day supported each other even though they competed fiercely. We’ve got to do that. That’s the kind of mark I want to leave. Play each other hard, but keep growing the sport.”
—SERENA WILLIAMS
The years that followed weren’t easy for the Williams sisters. Their half sister Yetunde Price was murdered in a shooting in Compton, California, in 2003. Venus and Serena were distraught. “She was a wonderful person,” Serena said. “We’re dealing with it however we can. Some days are better than others.” More than a decade later, the two opened the Yetunde Price Resource Center in Compton, to honor their sister’s memory and help people who don’t have the same support network the Williams family did.
In 2008, Venus and Serena returned to the Olympics, this time in Beijing. Once again, they took home the gold in women’s doubles. Four years later, in London, they won again. During the 2017 Australian Open, Serena, who had once again been rising steadily through the ranks, beat Venus to win her twenty-third Grand Slam title, and earned the ranking of number one in the world. (She has spent more than three hundred weeks, spread over fifteen years, ranked number one.) As she often has, Serena credited her sister for her success. “There is no way I would be at twenty-three without her. There is no way I would be at one without her. She is my inspiration. She is the only reason I am standing here today and the only reason that the Williams sisters exist.”
That same year, mid-tour, Serena announced she was pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia, in September 2017—meaning she won the Australian Open while pregnant. Afterward, she courageously shared the nightmarish complications she had experienced after delivering her daughter by C-section. Because she had a history of blood clots, she was hypervigilant in watching for the signs of clotting after the surgery. When she felt a familiar sensation, she spoke up. The nurse suggested that the pain medication had left her confused, but Serena knew exactly what was happening. She insisted on getting scans, which confirmed her fears. She wound up having two more surgeries.
“I was terrified,” she said later. “It was a whole new kind of fear.” She has since helped bring attention to maternal mortality in America, where seven hundred women die every year as a result of complications from pregnancy or childbirth. Even though maternal mortality around the world has been steadily decreasing over the last several years, it’s actually rising in the U.S. As she has done all her life, Serena is turning a crisis into an opportunity to raise visibility around an important issue that affects too many women, especially women of color.
“Some people say that I have an attitude. Maybe I do. But I think that you have to. You have to believe in yourself when no one else does. That makes you a winner right there.”
—VENUS WILLIAMS
Serena is also continuing to speak out, with her typical candor, about the challenges women face on the court and off. Every woman who has felt that she was trying to play by ever-changing rules empathized when, after Serena wore a black catsuit during a match, the French Tennis Federation president decided to change the dress code at the French Open. Serena explained that, in addition to making her feel like a superhero, the catsuit’s compression helped to prevent blood clots. He stuck by his decision: “It will no longer be accepted. One must respect the game and the place.” Why is it that nothing seems to make some people more uncomfortable than a woman in pants? Serena laughed off the controversy and continued to not only accept but also celebrate herself. After her daughter was born, she posted a picture on Instagram, proudly declaring: “She has my arms and legs! My exact same strong, muscular, powerful, sensational arms and body.” At the 2018 U.S. Open, she showed up in a tennis tutu. When she came back to the French Open, she was wearing a bold outfit covered in the French words for “Mother, Champion, Queen, Goddess.”
CHELSEA
I have loved watching Serena champion equal pay for women, athletes and nonathletes alike. I shared her fabulous open letter in November 2016 with friends and on social media. She wrote: “[W]hen the subject of equal pay comes up, it frustrates me because I know firsthand that I, like you, have done the same work and made the same sacrifices as our male counterparts. I would never want my daughter to be paid less than my son for the same work. Nor would you.” She is a role model, for all of us and for our daughters and sons.
As for Venus, in addition to continuing to compete at the highest levels of tennis, she continues to build on her creative talents. She founded her own women’s activewear brand, and she directs her own interior design firm. Though she has talked about the challenges of building a new career, as she says, “I don’t focus on what I’m up against. I focus on my goals and try to ignore the rest.” In the end, it’s that ability to tune out the distractions and zero in on chasing their dreams that has made the Williams sisters two of the greatest athletes in the world.
Ibtihaj Muhammad
Chelsea
When she was growing up in New Jersey in the 1990s, Ibtihaj Muhammad’s parents wanted all their children to be able to compete and win in sports. They also wanted to ensure that their daughters remain fully covered and wear hijab to cover their heads, in keeping with their family’s religious beliefs. Ibtihaj experimented with different sports but always had to modify the uniforms. Fencing, however, seemed like a perfect option: Since fencers wear full-body suits and masks, the uniforms wouldn’t need to be altered.
When she started fencing at thirteen, Ibtihaj didn’t fall in love with the sport right away. At her mother’s encouragement, she continued with fencing because she hoped it would be a good way to bolster her future college applications. She confronted racism and Islamophobia early on. Her teammates wondered whether a black woman could succeed in a generally white sport. Ibtihaj was told her legs were too muscular and that no one who wore hijab could ever be a champion. “When most people picture an Olympic fencer, they probably do not imagine a person like me,” she said in her USA Fencing bio. “Fortunately, I am not most people.”
Over time, Ibtihaj repeatedly overcame the
bigotry directed at her and proved her detractors wrong. As a college student at Duke, she was a three-time all-American athlete and the 2005 Junior Olympic champion. During her junior year, she took time off from the sport, deciding to focus on completing her double major in African studies and international relations. “Being a student athlete is so difficult, and I would argue even more so at a school like Duke,” she said. “It was the right decision to make.” But she never gave up on her fencing dreams.
After college, she turned her attention to fencing full-time. “I saw there was a lack of minorities in the sport,” she said. “There were barriers that needed to be broken in women’s saber.” She was determined to win an Olympic medal and believed that if she worked hard enough, she could do it. In 2010, she qualified for the World Fencing Championships in France. While there, Ibtihaj was asked for her autograph for the first time. Paris has long been the center of the competitive fencing world; it’s also the capital of a country that passed legislation the same year Ibtihaj competed at the World Fencing Championships banning full-face covering in public, known as a niqab or burqa. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban four years later. When she was later interviewed about the competition, Ibtihaj said, “In France, a place that has struggled with the idea of hijab and with the Muslim community, I feel like it was a moment for even French citizens to see a Muslim woman on television.”
After the World Championships, Ibtihaj made history when she secured a spot on the 2016 United States National Fencing Team for that year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a first for an American Muslim woman. The more she succeeded, the more people criticized her. “People told me that my goals weren’t attainable for whatever reason—especially when I was trying to achieve a feat that has never been done before—and that was discouraging,” she said. Still, she refused to be deterred by the ignorance, bigotry, and hate she received, even when they came from people who should have been supporting her. Her teammates asked her whether she used a “magic carpet” to pray and deliberately didn’t tell her about team practices. “Then it became very clear, ‘We don’t want you here,’ ” she said. She also would later say that both the U.S. Fencing Association and Olympic Committee didn’t take the death threats against her as seriously as they should have. “If anything, as a national governing body, I would hope that USA Fencing would want to protect me, and I never felt that from them,” she said.
The Book of Gutsy Women Page 21
