Sarah Storey just won her 17th gold medal – and became Team GB’s most successful Paralympian

Sarah Storey just became the most successful Paralympian for Team GB. And there are plenty of other women, from Serena Williams to Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who have broken history and inspired a generation of women. 

There’s nothing like an Olympic and Paralympic year to get people feeling excited about sport. It’s been an inspiring summer of record-breaking female athletes on our screens, with gymnastics, swimming and cycling already having taken centre stage at Tokyo 2020. 

This year is particularly important for women, as Team GB sent more women than men to the Tokyo Olympic Games, and the Paralympians had more female competitors than ever before. 

If you’re wondering who inspired this year’s crop of athletes, you need to look back at the women who came before them – the GOATs. Amazingly, some of those who competed years ago still retain world records, while others have gone down in the history books for charting the path for future stars.

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There are countless women out there who are responsible for encouraging generations of women to play, run, jump, flip, dive, dance and kick. Here, we’ve rounded up 16 of the greatest and most inspiring sportswomen ever, from Serena Williams to Dina Asher-Smith.

• Sarah Storey

  

  At the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, Storey became Great Britain’s most successful Paralympian. She won her 17th gold medal in the women’s road race, having already taken gold in the velodrome and in the road time trials.  

  Perhaps most impressively, Storey was already the most decorated Paralympian of all time, having started her career in the pool. She won two golds, three silvers and a bronze in 1992, before moving into cycling. At the 2010 Commonwealth Games she became the first disabled cyclist to compete for England against non-disabled cyclists.

  She never intended on being a medalist, let alone a record holding one. After winning her 17th gold, she said: “I just wanted to be a British athlete… I couldn’t have imagined having eight Games, let alone winning medals at every Games, and 17 of those medals being gold. It’s the dream I didn’t have, coming true.”

• Charlotte Dujardin

  

  Team GB dressage rider and equestrian Dujardin is the most decorated British female athlete of all time. Having won six medals across three games – including two bronze medals at Tokyo – she’s been awarded an OBE, CBE and Sportswoman of the Year. 

• Misty Copeland

  

  In 2015, Misty Copeland  became the first African American woman to be promoted to principal dancer in the American Ballet Theatre’s 75-year history. She’s widely regarded as one of the most groundbreaking ballet dancers, despite only starting aged thirteen (when most begin as early as two years old).

• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

  Shelly-Anne Fraser-Pryce ran a 10.63 second 100m sprint earlier in June 2021, making her the second fastest woman of all time and the fastest woman alive. All eyes are now on the Jamaican runner ahead of Tokyo 2021. 

• Jacqueline Joyner-Kersee

  

  In 1986, American heptathlete Joyner-Kersee became the first woman to score over 7,000 points in a heptathlon event. Two years later, at the the Seoul Olympic Games, she set the still-standing heptathlon world record of 7,291 points. With six Olympic medals to her name, she’s widely regarded as one of the best track and field athletes of all time. 

• Dina Asher-Smith

  

  The fastest British woman in recorded history, Asher-Smith has broken record after record. Most recently, she set a new world record in the 60m, clocking a win at 7.08 seconds at the World Indoor Athletics Tour in January 2021. 

• Megan Rapinoe

  

  Megan Rapinoe won gold with USA Women at the 2012 London Olympics as well as the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups. Off the pitch, she’s been a key figure in the USA Women’s equal pay dispute – fighting for female players to be paid equally to their male counterparts.

• Simone Biles

  Biles is the most decorated American gymnast of all time, and the world’s third most decorated gymnast – at just 23 years old. She became the first female athlete to land the Yurchenko double pike in a competition earlier this year. 

• Lottie Dod

  

  Dodd won the Wimbledon Ladies’ Singles Championship five times. Her first victory happened in 1887 when she was only fifteen; she still remains the youngest ladies’ singles champion. The Guinness Book of Records has named her as the most versatile female athlete of all time, given that she also played for the England Hockey team and won a silver in archery at the Olympic Games. 

• Serena Williams

  While as prolific for her work off the court as on, her tennis career has broken record after record. Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era and four Olympic gold medals. When not smashing records with her racquet, she’s busy being one of the most powerful female voices in sport fighting for equality. 

• Tegla Loroupe

  

  Loroupe was the first African woman to hold the marathon world record, which she broke in April 1998 and held until 2001. The Kenyan runner still holds the world records for 25 and 30 kilometres, as well as being a spokesperson for women’s rights and peace. 

• Lucia Rijker

  

  Dubbed “The Most Dangerous Woman in the World”, Riker is considered the greatest female boxer of all time. The Dutch athlete won four world titles and amassed a 36-0 record as a kickboxer, while also having short careers in judo, fencing and softball. 

• Billie Jean King

  

  As if holding the world number one ranking in women’s tennis for six years, 39 Grand Slam tennis titles and 20 career victories at Wimbledon aren’t enough, King has also changed sport for the women who followed. In 1973, 90 million people watched King defeat Bobby Riggs in The Battle of the Sexes, and changed attitudes towards and representation of for female athletes. 

• Katinka Hosszú

  

  Known as the Iron Lady, Hosszú was the first swimmer of any gender to hold world records in all five individual medley events at the same time. She holds two-thirds of the national records in her home country of Hungary and, in 2014, became the first race-prize dollar millionaire in swimming history.

• Florence Griffith Joyner

  

  The fastest woman of all time, Joyner’s records for the 100m (10.54 seconds) and 200m (21.34 seconds) still stand 20 years later. She became a pop-culture icon after her retirement for her love of fashion (check out that running suit) as much as her unbeatable run times. 

• Mildred ‘Babe’ Didrikson Zaharias

  

  One of the most multi-talented athletes of the 20th century, Didrikson Zaharias competed in basketball, track and field and golf. At the 1932 Olympics, Didrikson Zaharias set four world records, winning two gold medals and one silver medal for track and field. After retirement, she took to golf and competed in the 1938Los Angeles Open – a competition no other woman could compete in for six decades after.

• Paula Radcliff

  

  The three-time winner of the London Marathon and New York Marathon, Radcliff was the fastest female marathoner of all time. She held the women’s world record of 2:15:25 for 16 years until 2019, and has been inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame. 

Images: Getty 

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