black women in sports: Celebs Rumors

ESPYs will highlight the players, people and moments that made this year special.Hosted by the 2022 NBA Finals MVP Steph Curry, ESPN’s annual award show airs this evening, and will feature some of the biggest stars in the world of sports. As with other forms of entertainment, many people are looking forward to the ESPYs red carpet to check out the latest and greatest in fashion.

Caster Semenya is sharing her frustration with trying to prove her womanhood to track officials in order to compete.In a new interview with HBO Real Sports, which aired this week, the 31-year-old South African track star recalled how, as a teenager, she offered to show her body to officials at World Athletics to prove she was a female. World Athletics is the international governing body for track and field.According to Reuters, Semenya, came onto the scene in 2009 as an 18-year-old rookie. She won the women’s 800m at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin by a stunning margin and then was subjected to sex verification testing.

Tara Starks took to the podium to accept her award from Black Women in Sports, a new class of women recognized by ESSENCE for the contributions to sports.

Black Women in Sports brunch and broke down some of her basketball woes and biggest victories. With an acceptance speech beautifully balancing emotional ebbs and flows, the basketball star wowed the room with stories about her historic stint on the hardwood.

Essence Black Women In Sports brought its best game to the table. The brunch table that is.  From college All-Americans and WNBA stars to business leaders and those who breathe life into the game on the broadcasting side, the Black Women in Sports Brunch brought some of basketball’s finest together and forced everyone in the room to take a harder look at how to embrace, encourage, empower and equip female basketball players. The event kicked off with two powerful panels, exploring solutions and ideas surrounding better experiences on campus for Black female student athletes at predominantly white institutions and financial literacy. With appetites for tangible solutions filled, the afternoon moved to honoring two of basketball’s most beloved: legendary girls basketball coach, Tara Starks, and the “Michael Jordan” of women’s basketball, Sheryl Swoopes. Upon receiving her award, Tara Starks took her time at the podium to acknowledge her mission to meet the needs of young female basketball players in the Minneapolis community with a consistent commitment to mentor them through the game of basketball. Unapologetic and overwhelmed with emotion, Sheryl Swoopes shared her gratitude for the honor and some bright spots in her basketball career. Adversely, she also expressed the heavy hit her personal and professional life took after retiring from the WNBA.  Both pioneers in the basketball sphere, Starks and Swoopes now join a special sorority: a new class of women to be honored by ESSENCE for their contributions to sports.Take a look at the momentum, memories and conversations from the event, sponsored by Coca-Cola, below.TOPICS:  black women in sports Black Women in Sports Brunch & Honors

th year, for starting the first ever HBCU women’s rowing team. Consisting of five student athletes, the Saint Augustine team has already been “approved and certified by the American Collegiate Rowing Association (ACRA). The team will be helmed by a professor in the School of Business, Management, and Technology, Dr. Mark Janas, who wants to add an additional five athletes to the roster.

NBA Today, host Malika Andrews and WNBA player turned analyst Chiney Ogwumike are applying full-court pressure, Ari Lennox–style, to professional basketball news. “And we do it with some flavor,” Ogwumike says.The rising stars understand that sometimes in sports media, you have to be seen before you’re heard—and both Ogwumike and Andrews take the responsibility of making sure that Black women are seen, seriously.

Black Women In Sports Brunch in Inglewood. Presented by Coca-Cola® and hosted by Gia Peppers, the event honored sports journalists Cari Champion and Jemele Hill with additional remarks from ESSENCE CEO Caroline Wanga and Chairman of ESSENCE Ventures, Richelieu Dennis.Before teasing with a backstory about how she and Hill became friends, Champion told attendees, “The very first image of a Black woman in a position of power was this lady named Oprah Winfrey.” Through Oprah’s visibility, Champion first saw herself on TV, and it was later with support from Jemele Hill that she found deeper purpose. “She stood in the gap.

The Reid Out, Joy Reid added “Because there are so few Black women in these spaces, it’s incumbent for us to see every Black woman as a prospect to add to the team. It’s never about competition, it’s always about adding.”“Hearing Cari and Jemele talk about their experience really resonated with me. I was all choked up,” said The Cross Connection host, Tiffany Cross. “I just relish in the space and spirit of Black women and recognizing that when we’re together, we’re a power structure.” The event’s emcee, journalist Gia Peppers believes that people don’t leave jobs, they leave management and horrible teams. “Black women having camaraderie in the workplace is the difference between women knowing they can stay at a hard job and people feeling lonely enough that they have to quit. When we see each other, when we create space for each other, when we show up for each other, we can change the world.”

ESSENCE’s Gen Z editor Brooklyn White responds to critiques of Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from the French Open and Wimbledon, Sha’Carri Richardson’s disqualification from the Olympics and Simone Biles’ decision to pull out from the womens gymnastics competition at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Each has discussed feeling pressure during high points in their athletic careers.

pic.twitter.com/lT0LoEV3eO— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) July 18, 2021At 15, Gauff shocked the sports world when she beat tennis icon Venus Williams in the opening round of Wimbledon in 2019. She then bested Williams again during her Australian Open debut in January 2020 and defeated Naomi Osaka at the same event. Read our interview with track and field Olympian Alyson Felix here.

In this Keeping It Z column piece, editor Brooklyn White urges the world to have empathy for Sha’Carri Richardson following her testing positive for marijuana.

Simone Biles gave her a push to keep going. During a conversation with the New York Times, Chiles talked about the momentum she was gaining as a gymnast in 2017.

Runners World. “To have her here at the biggest meet of my life, it’s just amazing.

Greatest of All Time.” The first woman in history to land a Yurchenko double pike in competition.Our jaws are on the floor. @Simone_Biles is still in the air. #USClassic pic.twitter.com/CmJYRidtfoBefore Biles, only men had done the Yurchenko double pike. The complex move consists of the following: a run into a roundoff off of the springboard, two piked in-air backflips and a landing. “I was just thinking, ‘Do it like training. Don’t try to like overdo anything,'” she said after her daring feat. “…I have a tendency as soon as I raise my hand to kind of overpower things, and I did a little bit, but at least I was on my feet. It’s a new vault and I’m proud of how today went.”

Venus and Serena Williams while on the road to becoming the tennis champ she is today. After partnering with Nike and Laureus Sport for Good on a Japan-based initiative to do the same and get more girls active in sports, Osaka announced that her Play Academy is expanding to Los Angeles and Haiti.Laureus is a global sporting movement that honors athletes at a yearly award show.

Olympic games (Rio 2016), where she took home 4 gold medals, while that same year, she became the first woman to win four straight U.S. all-around titles in over 40 years at the 2016 P&G Championship.