List of famous female athletes, listed by their level of prominence with photos when available. This greatest female athletes list contains the most prominent and top females known for being athletes. There are thousand of females working as athletes in the world, but this list highlights only the most notable ones. Historic athletes have worked hard to become the best that they can be, so if you're a female aspiring to be a athlete then the people below should give you inspiration.
The list you're viewing is made up of many different popular women athletes, like Maria Sharapova and Diane Gillis.
While this isn't a list of all female athletes, it does answer the questions "Who are the most famous female athletes?" and "Who are the best female athletes?"- Photo: Metaweb (FB)Christine Ijeoma Ohuruogu, MBE (born 17 May 1984) is a British track and field athlete who specialises in the 400 metres, the event for which she is a former Olympic, World and Commonwealth champion. The Olympic champion in 2008, and silver medalist in 2012, she is a double World Champion, having won the 400 m at the 2007 and 2013 World Championships. She has also won six World championship medals in the women's 4 x 400m relay as part of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team (three awarded following disqualification for doping for other athletes) and bronze Olympic medals with the women's 4 x 400m relay at the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2016 Rio Games, her final Olympics. Ohuruogu shares with Merlene Ottey and Usain Bolt the record for medalling in most successive global championships - 9 between the 2005 World Championships in Athletics and the 2016 Summer Olympics. Ohuruogu's personal best time of 49.41 seconds, set at the 2013 World Championships, beat the UK record set by Kathy Cook in 1984 by 0.02 seconds, simultaneously making her the first British female to win two World Championship titles, and the first British female to win three global titles. Her relay bronze at the 2016 Summer Olympics made her only the second British track and field athlete, after Steve Backley to win medals at three successive Olympic Games. She is coached by Lloyd Cowan.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-2.5Tirunesh Dibaba Kenene ( born 1 June 1985) is an Ethiopian athlete who competes in long distance track events and international road races. She is the 5000 metres (outdoor track) world record holder. She has won three Olympic track gold medals, five World Championship track gold medals, four individual World Cross Country (WCC) adult titles, and one individual WCC junior title. She is nicknamed the "Baby Faced Destroyer."
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BYShannon Ann MacMillan (born October 7, 1974) is an American retired soccer player, coach, FIFA Women's World Cup champion, Olympic gold and silver medalist. Named U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year for 2002, MacMillan played for the United States women's national soccer team from 1994โ2006 and was part of the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup-winning team (commonly known as the '99ers). She won gold with the team at the 1996 Summer Olympics and silver at the 2000 Summer Olympics. In 2007, MacMillan became an assistant coach for the UCLA Bruins women's soccer team. In 2016, she was inducted in the National Soccer Hall of Fame.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainPaula Jane Radcliffe, MBE (born 17 December 1973) is a British long-distance runner. She is a three-time winner of the London Marathon (2002, 2003, 2005), three-time New York Marathon champion (2004, 2007, 2008), and 2002 Chicago Marathon winner. She is the fastest female marathoner of all time and has held the Womenโs World Marathon Record in a time of 2:15:25 since 2003. Radcliffe is a former world champion in the marathon, half marathon and cross country. She has also been European champion over 10,000 metres and in cross country. On the track, Radcliffe won the 10,000 metres silver medal at the 1999 World Championships and was the 2002 Commonwealth champion at 5000 metres. She represented Great Britain at the Olympics in four consecutive games (1996 to 2008), although she never won an Olympic medal. Her running has earned her a number of accolades including the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Laureus World Comeback of the Year, IAAF World Athlete of the Year, AIMS World Athlete of the Year (three times) and a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). She has also been nominated for World Sportswoman of the year on several occasions. In 2010, she was inducted into the England Athletics Hall of Fame. She ended her competitive running career at the 2015 London Marathon.
- Photo: theahoycentre / flickr / CC-BY-NC 2.0Carys Davina Grey-Thompson, Baroness Grey-Thompson, DBE, DL (born 26 July 1969), known as Tanni Grey-Thompson, is a Welsh politician, television presenter and former wheelchair racer. She has also been the Chancellor of Northumbria University since July 2015.Grey-Thompson was born with spina bifida and is a wheelchair user. She is one of the most successful disabled athletes in the UK. She graduated from Loughborough University in 1991 with a BA (Hons) degree in Politics and Social Administration.
- Photo: hockeyMedia / CC-BY-SA 2.0Marie-Philip Poulin-Nadeau (born March 28, 1991) is a Canadian ice hockey forward, playing for Les Canadiennes de Montreal. Poulin was a member of the Canada women's national ice hockey teams that won the gold medal at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and had previously played for the team Dawson College Blues. She has been referred to as the Sidney Crosby of women's hockey for her high level of achievement at a young age. She has the unique distinction of having scored the game winning goal in the gold medal games in the first two Olympics in which she competed. She also scored the second goal to give the Canadians the lead in the 2018 Winter Olympics gold medal game until Monique Lamoureux tied the game with 6:21 remaining.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SA-2.0Sally Pearson, OAM (nรฉe McLellan; born 19 September 1986) is a retired Australian athlete. She is the 2011 and 2017 World champion and 2012 Olympic champion in the 100 metres hurdles. She also won a silver medal in the 100 m hurdles at the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2013 World Championships.Moreย Sally McLellan
- #82 of 180 onThe Most Inspiring (Non-Hollywood) Female Role Models
- #557 of 1,269 onThe Best Athletes Of All Time
- #6 of 54 onWho Is The Most Famous Sally In The World?
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SA-2.0
Kelly Holmes
Dame Kelly Holmes, (born 19 April 1970) is a retired British middle distance athlete. Holmes specialised in the 800 metres and 1500 metres events and won a gold medal for both distances at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She set British records in numerous events and still holds the records over the 600, 800 and 1000 metre distances. Inspired by a number of successful British middle distance runners in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Holmes began competing in middle distance events in her youth. She joined the British Army, but continued to compete at the organisation's athletics events. She turned to the professional athletics circuit in the early 1990s and in 1994 she won the 1500 m at the Commonwealth Games and took silver at the European Championships. She won a silver and a bronze medal at the 1995 Gothenburg World Championships, but suffered from various injuries over the following two years, failing to gain a medal at her first Olympics in Atlanta 1996. She won silver in the 1500 m at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and bronze in the 800 m at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, her first Olympic medal. Holmes won the 1500 m at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and the 800 m bronze at the Munich European Championships that year. The 2003 track season saw her take silver in the 1500 m at the World Indoor Championships and the 800 m silver medals at the World Championships and first World Athletics Final. She took part in her final major championship in 2004, with a double gold medal-winning performance at the Athens Olympics, finishing as the 800 m and 1500 m Olympic Champion. For her achievements she won numerous awards and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2005. She retired from athletics in 2005 and has since made a number of television appearances. - Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BYKara Goucher (born Kara Grgas on July 9, 1978) is an American long-distance runner. She was the 10,000 meters silver medalist at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics and represented her country at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics. She made her marathon debut in 2008 and finished third the following year at the Boston Marathon. She competed collegiately for the University of Colorado and was a three-time NCAA champion (twice in track and once in cross country).
- Tara Ann VanDerveer (born June 26, 1953) is an American basketball coach who has been the head women's basketball coach at Stanford University since 1985. Designated the Setsuko Ishiyama Director of Women's Basketball, VanDerveer led the Stanford Cardinal to two NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championships: in 1990 and 1992. She stepped away from the Stanford program for a year to serve as the U.S. national team head coach at the 1996 Olympic Games. VanDerveer is the 1990 Naismith National Coach of the Year and a ten-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year. She is also one of only nine NCAA Women's Basketball coaches to win over 900 games, and one of ten NCAA Division I coaches โ men's or women's โ to win 1,000 games.
- Photo: John Blower / FlickrSally Jane Janet Gunnell (born 29 July 1966) is a British former track and field athlete who won the 1992 Olympic gold medal in the 400 m hurdles. She is the only female British athlete to have won Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles, and (as of 2017) is the only female 400 m hurdler in history to have won the Olympic and World titles and broken the world record. She also worked as a television presenter, predominantly for the BBC until January 2006. She was made an MBE in 1993 and an OBE in 1998.
- Photo: user uploaded imageCara-Beth Burnside, nicknamed "CB" (born July 23, 1971 in Orange, California, United States), is a professional skateboarder and snowboarder and ranks amongst the top female athletes in these sports in the world. She was the first president of the Action Sports Alliance. As a skateboarder, Burnside has won more than 16 titles in competitions such as the X Games, All Girl Skate Jam, Vans Triple Crown, Slam City Jam and Soul Bowl, and in 2004 she was named Female Vert Skater of the Year by World Cup Skating.As a snowboarder, she was on the first United States Olympic snowboarding team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, where she placed 4th. She has also won titles at the snowboarding Grand Prix, the X Games and the Vans Triple Crown.In 1998 she received gold medals for both the snowboarding halfpipe event in the 1998 Winter X Games and the skateboard vert event at the 2003 Summer X Games. She is the first woman to have a signature skate shoe.She is featured in the beginning and end titles for the documentary film Not Bad for a Girl. Burnside is a vegetarian.Burnside is a playable character in the video games Grind Session and Tony Hawk: Ride.
- Photo: Girlsskatenetwork / InstagramAmy Caron (born November 2, 1984) is a professional skateboarder living in Huntington Beach, California.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Fair useCatherine Ward (born February 27, 1987) is a member of the Canada women's national ice hockey team. She was also a member of the 2008โ09 McGill Martlets women's hockey season, which won a Canadian Interuniversity Sport title. She was drafted 7th overall by the Montreal Stars in the 2011 CWHL Draft.Ward established herself as one of Canada's stars on the blue line playing for the Canadian U22 team and for the 2009 Women's World Championship team and the 2010 Olympic gold medal winning team. While with Martlets at McGill University, Ward set a QSSF record for points by a defenseman, and in 2007 became the first Martlet to earn the CIS rookie-of-the-year honour since the inception of the award in 2001. She set new McGill single-season marks for most goals, assists and points in her varsity debut, finishing second among CIS defensemen with 22 points despite playing in only 16 conference games. She was a three-time CIS All-Canadian Defender and in 2009 won the CIS Women's Hockey Championship's MVP award. Ward also played one season in the NCAA as a Boston University Terrier, and was a 2011 Patty Kazmaier Award Nominee, Second Team All-American, NCAA Frozen Four All-Tournament team member, and a New England Women's Division I All-Star selection.
- Derval O'Rourke (born 28 May 1981) is an Irish former sprint hurdles athlete. She competed internationally in the 60 and 100 metres hurdles, and is the Irish national record holder in both events. She participated in two Indoor World Championships, the last five Outdoor World Championships and the 2004, 2008, and 2012 Summer Olympics.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB)Erika Lyn Lawler (born February 5, 1987) is a member of the 2009โ10 United States national women's ice hockey team which participated in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Lawler played prep hockey at Cushing Academy where she won the Bette Davis Award as the top athlete in her class three times. She then played collegiately for the Wisconsin Badgers of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association and won three NCAA titles (2006, 2007 and 2009).
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SA-2.0Pamela Jelimo (born 5 December 1989) is a Kenyan middle-distance runner, specialising in the 800 metres. She won the gold medal in this event at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing at the age of 18. She is the first Kenyan woman to win an Olympic gold medal and also the first Kenyan to win the Golden League Jackpot. She holds both the 800 m world junior record and the senior African record over the same distance. Jelimo is also one of the youngest women to win an Olympic gold medal for Kenya.
- Sheila Christine Taormina (born March 18, 1969) is an American former athlete who competed at four Olympics (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008), and was the first woman to qualify for the Olympics in three different sports (swimming, triathlon and modern pentathlon). At the 1996 Summer Olympics, she earned a gold medal as a member of the winning U.S. team in the women's 4ร200-meter freestyle relay. She was inducted in 2015 into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SA-2.0Lisa Jane Dobriskey (born 23 December 1983 in Ashford, Kent) is an English middle distance athlete. She was the Commonwealth champion in the 1500 m in 2006 and won a silver medal in the same distance at the 2009 World Championships.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SADani Stevens (nรฉe Samuels, born 26 May 1988) is an Australian discus thrower who in 2009 became the youngest ever female world champion in the event. She is the current national and Oceanian record holder. After winning the discus gold and shot put bronze medals at the 2005 World Youth Championships in Athletics, she went on to win the bronze medal in the discus at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne at the age of seventeen. She won the discus silver at the 2007 Summer Universiade and represented Australia at her first World Championships in Athletics soon after. She reached the final of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and improved significantly the following year to win the gold medal at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. Samuels is one of only nine athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kirani James, Jana Pittman, and David Storl) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. Her personal best throws are 69.64 m for the discus and 17.05 metres in the shot put. Samuels has also spent many winters playing basketball in the Waratah League alongside her sister, Jamie, who has played in the Women's National Basketball League.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BYKerryn McCann (2 May 1967 โ 7 December 2008) was an Australian athlete. She was best known for winning the marathon at the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games.
- Merlene Joyce Ottey OD (born 10 May 1960) is a Jamaican former track and field sprinter. She began her career representing Jamaica, before representing Slovenia from 2002 to 2012. She is ranked fourth on the all-time list over 60 metres (indoor), seventh on the all-time list over 100 metres and fourth on the all-time list over 200 metres. She is the current world indoor record holder for 200 metres with 21.87 seconds, set in 1993. Ottey had the longest career as a top level international sprinter appearing at the Pan Am games in 1979 as a 19 year old fresh from U20 and Junior competitions, and concluding her career at age 52 when she anchored the Slovene 4 ร 100 m relay team at the 2012 European Championships. A nine-time Olympic medalist, she holds the record for the most Olympic appearances (seven) of any track and field athlete. Although gold medal success at the Olympics eluded Ottey, she was able to bring home three silvers and six bronze medals. She won 14 World Championship medals, and still holds the record (as of 2017) for most medals in individual events with 10. Her career achievements and longevity led to her being called the "Queen of the Track". Her proclivity for earning bronze medals in major championships earned her the title of "Bronze Queen" in track circles.Ottey was formerly married to the American high jumper and 400 m hurdler Nat Page and was known as Merlene Ottey-Page during the mid-eighties.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SA-2.5Jamie Rae Salรฉ (born April 21, 1977) is a Canadian pair skater. With partner and former husband David Pelletier, she is the 2002 Olympic Champion and 2001 World Champion. The Olympic gold medals of Salรฉ and Pelletier were shared with the Russian pair Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze after the 2002 Winter Olympics figure skating scandal.
- Elvan Abeylegesse, (also formerly: Hewan Abeye (แ แแซแ แ แ แญแแแ , Amharic) and Elvan Can (Turkish); born September 11, 1982) is an Ethiopian-born Turkish middle and long-distance running athlete who competes over distances from 1500 metres up to the marathon, and also in cross country. She is the former world record-holder for the 5000 metres, at 14:24.68 minutes. In August 2015, the Turkish Athletics Federation confirmed that an anti-doping test taken during the 2007 World Championships in Athletics had been retested and found to be positive for a controlled substance, and that the athlete had been temporarily suspended pending retesting of her 'B-sample'. If confirmed, Abeylegesse stood to lose her 2007 medal, and possibly other awards from that date. On 29 March 2017, IAAF confirmed the positive test, expunged her results from 25 August 2007 until 25 August 2009 (thereby stripping her of the two silver medals she had won at the 2008 Olympic Games), and banned her from athletics for two years.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainHeather Danielle Petri (born June 13, 1978) is an American water polo player, who won the silver medal with the US women's national team at the 2000 Summer Olympics, a bronze medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics, a silver medal in Beijing in 2008 and the gold medal in London 2012. Her position is attacker. Petri began playing water polo on the boys' team in high school, but helped begin a girls' water polo program at Miramonte High School and was team captain for two years. In 1997 she was recruited by UC Berkeley coach Maureen O'Toole, and played collegiate water polo from 1997โ2001. Petri earned All-America and All-MPSF honors at Cal in 1998 and 1999 and finished her college career with 96 goals. She sat out her senior season as a member of the first US women's Olympic water polo team, and graduated from Berkeley in 2002 with a degree in integrative biology. She played for Rari-Nantes, a professional water polo team in Florence, Italy, for the 2004โ2005 and 2005โ2006 season, and is currently a member of the US senior women's team. In March 2007, Petri competed in the 2007 World Aquatics Championships, representing the United States. After a series of victories, the United States won the gold medal, becoming world champions. Petri also won a gold medal in the 2003 World Aquatic Championships in Barcelona, Spain and in 2009 in Rome. She is now a three time World Champion. At the 2008 China Summer Olympic games, she and the American team lost 8-9 in the Championship game to the Netherlands and took home the silver medal.
- Photo: user uploaded imageCrystal Cox (born March 28, 1979 in Norfolk, Virginia) is an American track and field athlete who was on the national team at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympics and appeared as a contestant on the seventeenth season of the reality series Survivor.Moreย Crystal Cox
- #139 of 168 onThe Best Survivor Contestants That Ever Played
- #39 of 68 onWho Is The Most Famous Cox In The World?
- #20 of 27 onWho Is The Most Famous Crystal In The World?
- Photo: Metaweb / CC-BYBiljana "Biba" Goliฤ (Serbian Cyrillic: ะะธัะฐะฝะฐ "ะะธะฑะฐ" ะะพะปะธั) (born 9 November 1977) is a Serbian table tennis player.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainNancy Catherine Greene Raine (born May 11, 1943) is a former Canadian Senator for British Columbia and a champion alpine skier voted as Canada's Female Athlete of the 20th Century. She was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Greene Raine won a very decisive giant slalom victory in Grenoble, France in the 1968 Winter Olympics. After being appointed to the Senate in 2009, Greene Raine retired on May 11, 2018 when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 75. She is the mother of retired alpine skier Willy Raine.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BY-SA-2.5Lorena Ochoa Reyes (Spanish [loหษพena oหtอกสoa] ; born 15 November 1981) is a former Mexican professional golfer who played on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour from 2003 to 2010. She was the top-ranked female golfer in the world for 158 consecutive and total weeks (both are LPGA Tour records), from 23 April 2007 to her retirement in 2 May 2010, at the age of 28 years old. As the first Mexican golfer of either gender to be ranked number one in the world, she is considered the best Mexican golfer and the best Latin American female golfer of all time. Ochoa was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2017.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BYJessica Ann "Jessie" Vetter (born December 19, 1985) is an American ice hockey player and a member of the United States women's national ice hockey team. She was also a member of the 2008โ09 Wisconsin Badgers women's ice hockey team, which won an NCAA title. She was drafted 20th overall by the Boston Blades in the 2011 CWHL Draft.
