crème de la crème

Jai Ganesh · 2022-10-28 00:04:41

1166) Laura Kenny

Summary

Dame Laura Rebecca Kenny, Lady Kenny (née Trott; born 24 April 1992) is a British track and road cyclist who specialises in track endurance events, specifically the team pursuit, omnium, scratch race, elimination race and madison disciplines. With six Olympic medals, having won both the team pursuit and the omnium at both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics and madison at the 2020 Olympics, along with a silver medal from the team pursuit at the 2020 Olympics, she is both the most successful female cyclist, and the most successful British female athlete, in Olympic history. Her husband, Sir Jason Kenny, holds the same records on the male side, and together they are the most successful married couple in Olympic history where both spouses have won at least one gold medal (with 12 gold and three silver medals between them). Since first appearing at the European Track Championships in 2010, she has won seven World Championship, 14 European Championship and two Commonwealth Games titles, as part of a total of 34 medals. On the road, Kenny won the British National Road Race Championships in 2014, taking the under-23 title in the same race, but has not competed since 2015.

Details

Laura Kenny won the hearts of the British public at the London 2012 Olympic Games where, at the age of just 20, she captured gold medals on the track in the team pursuit and the multi-discipline omnium event. As a key part of the Great Britain team that won 12 medals - eight of them gold - across the cycling events, Kenny became one of the nation’s most popular athletes and went on to further success four years later in Rio, taking her personal tally of Olympic gold medals to four as she successfully defended both titles.

That achievement left Kenny as the most successful female Great Britain Olympic athlete in history, ahead of equestrian Charlotte Dujardin who won three gold and two silver at there same two Games as Kenny. And Kenny’s selection to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, as part of the women’s endurance squad, offered her the opportunity to add to that haul.

In total, in an astonishing career to date, Kenny has won 63 medals at UCI World Championships, UEC European Championships, UCI World Cups, Olympic and Commonwealth Games - 44 of them golds.

Her role in Great Britain’s domination of the team pursuit disciple is reflected in the fact that she has been part of teams that have broken the world record on no fewer than 11 occasions between 2012 and 2016 - three of them at the race’s old, three-rider, 3km format.

Additional Information

Laura Kenny (formerly Laura Trott) is a track and road cyclist with an impressive medal haul that includes four Olympic golds and holds a record 12 European Championship titles. She has the distinction of being both Great Britain’s most successful female Olympian in any sport and the most successful female track cyclist in Olympic history – and her career is not over yet.

Kenny took up sport on the advice of doctors, after being diagnosed with asthma, and started cycling with her sister and mother as a young girl. She won junior titles at the British National Track Championships in 2009 and 2010, and earned her place at the European Track Championships at the age of 18. In the years that followed, she won her first European and World Championship titles, and made her Olympic debut at London 2012. Here she scored golds in the team pursuit and the omnium, and became one of the Games’ standout stars.

A diverse athlete, Kenny competes in the omnium, scratch race, madison and team pursuit disciplines. She has gone on to win seven World Championships, one Commonwealth Games gold, and to defend both her golds at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, making sporting history.

She is married to fellow British cyclist Jason Kenny, who himself holds six Olympic gold medals, and is the sister of former road cyclist Emma Trott. She has an Honorary Degree from the University of Essex, and was appointed a CBE in 2017 for services to cycling, receiving hers on the same day that her husband received the same honour.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-10-30 00:03:57

1167) Jessica Ennis-Hill

Summary

Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2009, 2011, 2015), and the 2010 European champion. She is also the 2010 world indoor pentathlon champion. A member of the City of Sheffield & Dearne athletic club, she is a former British national record holder for the heptathlon. She is a former British record holder in the 100 metres hurdles, the high jump and the indoor pentathlon. Today, Ennis-Hill commentates for the BBC and runs Jennis, a fitness app specialising in women's health. Her latest product launch is CycleMapping, which helps women map their training to their menstrual cycles.

Details

A chance visit to an athletics taster event for children during the school holidays in 1996 proved to be the starting gun shot that set Team GB golden girl Jessica Ennis off on an incredible track career.

Even at the age of 11, racing hurdles for the first time, she made an immediate impression on coaches at the Don Valley stadium in her home town of Sheffield, West Yorkshire – particularly Tony Minichiello who took her under his wing and guided her to Olympic glory in London 15 years later.

After that first taste of athletics Ennis took up the sport in earnest, and became National Track and Field high jump champion at 14 with a leap of 1.70m, a title she would defend two years later.

But she really came to international prominence after switching to heptathlon, and in 2005 took gold at the World Junior Championships, third place in the World University Championships and first at the All England Athletics Championships.

First world title in Berlin

Training for several hours a day, six days a week elevated Ennis to the point where she was seen as a medal hope for Team GB at Beijing in 2008 – until disaster struck in the form of a serious bone fracture, meaning she would miss the Games.

But Ennis proved resilient as well as gifted, and with the help of Minichiello recovered to win the World Championships the following year in Berlin – even changing her long jump style to lead with her weaker foot – and she followed that up by clinching the World Indoor Championships title in 2010 in Doha, the high point of a year in which she recorded a 100% win record.

Heroine of London 2012

By 2012 she had become perhaps Britain’s most famous contemporary athlete – a fact not lost on visitors in London for the Games, where her face gazed out from posters all over the capital. Travellers arriving at Heathrow Airport were met by her image almost as soon as they stepped off their planes.

But despite being an elite athlete Ennis admitted to often being physically sick with nerves before competitions and felt deeply the pressure to win at her home Games from an expectant nation.

The 26-year-old put in an incredible 10,000 hours of training for the Games. A typical day would include plyometrics drills – short, explosive bursts of exercise – in a park in Sheffield, weights sessions and endurance sessions to prepare for the 800m. And it was that event, the final one of the 2012 heptathlon that would ultimately seal Ennis’ place in the hearts of spectators in the Olympic stadium and watching around the world on television.

After a strong start in the first event, the 100m hurdles, Ennis broke the British hurdles record and smashed her own personal best with an exhilarating run of 12.54 secs, before performing solidly in both the high jump and the javelin, her weakest event. Ennis went into the 800m with a commanding 188-point lead. And it was here that she truly cemented her status as an Olympic icon.

Knowing she could comfortably take gold overall in the competition without winning the 800m, she produced a world-class performance, bursting from the middle of the pack to finish first, giving her a new British and Commonwealth record score of 6,955 points and provoking ecstatic scenes in the stadium.

The pressure was off, and the face of the Games had delivered. Afterwards she said: ‘I can't believe I’ve had the opportunity to come to my first Games in London and won an Olympic gold medal. It’s unbelievable.’

Motherhood, another world title and Olympic silver

The new Olympic champion was celebrating again when she married her childhood sweetheart Andy Hill and then gave birth to their son, Reggie Ennis-Hill, on 17 July 2014.

She returned to the competitive arena in 2015 and won her second world title in the Bird’s Nest in Beijing that August with a total of 6,669 points. A year later, at the age of 30, she travelled to Rio as a warm favourite to retain her Olympic title.

Ennis-Hill began her defence in promising fashion, scoring 4,057 points in the first four events (100m hurdles, shot put, high jump and 200m) to take a comfortable lead over the rest of the field at the end of day one. The British athlete struggled in the long jump and javelin the following day, however, allowing Belgium’s Nafissatou Thiam to move past her and into the lead with just the 800m remaining.

To retain her crown, the defending champion had to beat the Belgian by fully nine seconds. Ennis-Hill gave it everything she had, running the fastest time of the event (2:09.07) to pour the pressure on the competition leader. Thiam crossed the line only 7.47 seconds behind, however, which give her the gold with a final points total of 6,810, just 35 clear of her British rival.

“It’s very hard to find the words to explain it,” said Ennis-Hill after clinching silver. “It’s very emotional. I have to make a big decision about what I’m going to do. This could be my last one.”

She confirmed that on 13 October 2016, bringing to an end one of the finest heptathlon careers ever seen. “This has been one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make,” said Ennis-Hill. “But I know that retiring now is right. I’ve always said I want to leave my sport on a high and have no regrets, and I can truly say that.”

Additional Information

Jessica Ennis-Hill, in full Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, née Jessica Ennis, (born January 28, 1986, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England), is an English track-and-field athlete who, at the 2012 London Olympic Games, won a gold medal in the heptathlon.

In 1996 Ennis participated in her first track-and-field competition. Her first major international heptathlon victory was in 2005 at the European junior championships. In 2006 she won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games and placed eighth at the European championships. A fourth-place finish at the 2007 IAAF world championships raised Ennis’s prospects for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but she suffered stress fractures in her right foot that kept her from the Games that year. Meanwhile, she completed a degree in psychology (2007) at the University of Sheffield.

After the injury Ennis switched to a left-leg takeoff for the high jump and the long jump. The adjustment helped her take the gold at the 2009 world championships. Although Ennis won the 2010 European championships with 6,823 points, she lost the world title and the top ranking in 2011 to Russian rival Tatyana Chernova. (However, Ennis was awarded the world championship in 2016 after Chernova was stripped of her title for having doped during the 2011 season.) Ennis rebounded the following year at the London Games. In addition to setting a world heptathlon record (12.54 seconds) in the 100-metre hurdles, Ennis, with her height of 1.26 metres (5 feet 4 1/2 inches), became the shortest woman to win a gold medal in the seven-event competition. In 2013 Ennis was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and married Andy Hill.

Ennis-Hill missed the 2014 track season, having given birth to a son. She returned in 2015 and qualified for the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games, where she won a silver medal in the heptathlon. Ennis-Hill retired from athletics shortly after the Rio Games. The following year she was formally made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-01 00:02:46

1168) Joannie Rochette

Summary

Joannie Rochette (born January 13, 1986) is a Canadian physician and retired competitive figure skater. She is the 2010 Olympic bronze medallist, the 2009 World silver medallist, the 2008 and 2009 Four Continents silver medallist, the 2004 Grand Prix Final bronze medallist, and a six-time (2005–10) Canadian national champion.

Details

At Vancouver 2010, Joannie Rochette made her mark on the world as a figure skater. Today, she is directly impacting hundreds, perhaps thousands of people as a medical doctor.

The Olympic bronze medallist received her medical degree from McGill University in the spring of 2020. The next day, her application to work in a CHSLD (long term care home) was sent to the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services. She completed her last university internship in geriatrics.

This cause is very important to her since her mother, who passed away a few days before her short program in Vancouver, was a beneficiary attendant. “I’ve always wanted to do this,’ she told TVA sports in 2017. “Seeing how each muscle works is exciting.”

The least we can say is that Rochette is not afraid of challenges… and of long years of schooling! “I could have continued to participate in skating shows for many years, but I thought at the age of 28 that a career as a doctor can take me to 70. So, studying full time for five years is nothing, when you think about it,” Rochette told TVA sports.

In 2013, Rochette confirmed that she would not aim to compete at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games as a member of the Canadian team – although she did go there as a part of the production team for Radio-Canada.

“Have I not said how proud I am of @pchan31 and his silver medal?” said Rochette on Instagram after Patrick Chan’s silver medal at Sochi 2014.

She also took her costume and skates in her suitcase, as she was then heading elsewhere in Europe for a few ice shows. Though her last true competition was at Vancouver 2010, Rochette did compete at an invitational event, the Japan Open, in 2013.

In addition to her new life as a doctor, Rochette is also involved with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada as a spokesperson. Her mother having passed away from a heart attack, this is obviously a cause that touches her deeply.

Rochette also remains very involved in the world of Canadian sport, notably through the Special Olympics Canada Champions Network and as an ambassador for the Montreal World Figure Skating Championships (which were to take place in spring 2020 in the city). She also made several media appearances in the winter of 2020, as all of Canada celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Vancouver Olympics.

Career

Rochette was born January 13, 1986 in Montreal, Quebec. She was raised in La Visitation-de-l'Île-Dupas.

Rochette began skating when she was just two years old after her mother took her to the rink. In the 1999–2000 season, she won the 2000 Canadian Championships on the novice level.

2000–01 season: Junior Grand Prix debut

The following season she debuted on the ISU Junior Grand Prix (JGP) series. She placed 5th at the 2000–01 ISU Junior Grand Prix event in France and 4th at the event in Mexico. She qualified for the 2001 Canadian Championships by winning both her qualifying events. At the Canadian Championships, she won her second consecutive national title, this time on the Junior level. She was then sent to the 2001 World Junior Championships, where she placed 8th.

2001–02 season

In the 2001–02 season, Rochette competed on the 2001–02 ISU Junior Grand Prix, winning the silver medal at the event in Italy. She won the bronze medal at the 2002 Canadian Championships on the senior level and qualified for the teams to the 2002 Four Continents and the 2002 Junior Worlds. At Four Continents, her second senior international event, Rochette placed 8th. She went on to place 5th at the World Junior Championships.

2002–03 season

In the 2002–03 season, Rochette won the silver medal at the 2003 Canadian Championships. She placed 8th at the 2003 Four Continents and 17th at the 2003 World Championships.

2003–04 season: Grand Prix debut

In the 2003–04 season, Rochette debuted on the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. She placed 10th at the 2003 Skate Canada and 4th at the 2003 Cup of Russia. She competed at the 2003 Bofrost Cup on Ice and won the event. At the 2004 Canadian Championships, Rochette won her second consecutive silver medal. She placed 4th at the 2004 Four Continents and moved up to 8th at the World Championships.

2004–05 season: Bronze at GP Final, first senior national title

In the 2004–05 season, Rochette won the bronze medal at the 2004 Cup of China and then won the 2004 Trophée Eric Bompard. She qualified for the 2004–05 Grand Prix Final, where she won the bronze medal. She won the 2005 Canadian Championships, her first Canadian senior title, which made her the first Canadian female skater to have won the Canadian Championships at all three levels (Novice, Junior, and Senior).[citation needed] She placed 11th at the 2005 World Championships. Her placement, combined with that of Cynthia Phaneuf, earned Canada two entries to the 2006 Winter Olympics.

2005–06 season: First Olympics

In the 2005–06 Olympic season, Rochette won the silver medal at the 2005 Skate Canada and placed 4th at the 2005 Trophée Eric Bompard. She won her second consecutive national title at the 2006 Canadian Championships. At the 2006 Winter Olympics, Rochette placed 5th. At the 2006 World Championships, Rochette led following the qualifying round, then placed 7th in the short program and 8th in the free skate to place 7th overall. She had fallen twice on her jumps.

2006–07 season: First Four Continents medal

In the 2006–07 season, Rochette won the 2006 Skate Canada and placed 4th at the 2006 Trophée Eric Bompard, and missed out on qualifying for the Grand Prix Final on a tie-break. At the 2007 Canadian Championships, Rochette won her third consecutive national title. She won the bronze medal at the 2007 Four Continents and placed 10th at the 2007 World Championships.

2007–08 season

In the 2007–08 season, Rochette won the bronze medals at the 2007 Skate Canada and the 2007 Cup of Russia. At the 2008 Canadian Championships, she won her fourth consecutive national title. She won the silver medal at the 2008 Four Continents and placed 5th at the 2008 World Championships.

2008–09 season: World silver medal

In the 2008–09 season, Rochette won the 2008 Skate Canada. She then won the 2008 Trophée Eric Bompard, beating reigning World Champion Mao Asada, and credited her work with a psychologist for her improved performances. She qualified for the 2008–09 Grand Prix Final, where she placed 4th. She won her fifth consecutive national title at the 2009 Canadian Championships. At the 2009 Four Continents Championships, she won the silver medal, again beating Asada. At the 2009 World Championships, Rochette won the silver medal, becoming the first Canadian woman since Elizabeth Manley to medal at the World Championships.

2009–10 season

For the 2009–10 Grand Prix season, Rochette was assigned to the 2009 Cup of China, and the 2009 Skate Canada International. She started off the season with at the Cup of China, where she placed 7th in the short program, with 52.12 points, 10.08 points behind overnight leader Mirai Nagasu. During the free skate she rebounded, placing 2nd with 111.06 points behind Akiko Suzuki, who placed 1st in that segment. Rochette won the bronze medal with 163.18 points, behind gold medallist Suzuki and silver medallist Kiira Korpi.

At the 2009 Skate Canada, she scored a new personal best in the short program, 70.00 points, placing her first. During the free skate, she placed first again, with 112.90 points. She won the gold medal ahead of silver medallist Alissa Czisny and bronze medallist Laura Lepistö.

Rochette qualified for the 2009–10 Grand Prix Final. She placed 4th in the short program with 60.94 points, 5.2 points behind overnight leader, Miki Ando. Rochette placed 5th in the free skate, earning only 95.77 points. She placed 5th overall with 156.71 points, 32.15 points behind gold medallist Yuna Kim.

2010 Winter Olympics

Rochette was nominated to represent Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics after winning her sixth straight Canadian National title.

While practicing for the short program, Rochette received tragic news: her mother had died shortly after arriving in Vancouver. Upon hearing the news, NBC speed-skating commentator Dan Jansen sent an e-mail to Rochette and shared his experiences of his sister's death during the Calgary Olympics (Canada's last Olympics before Vancouver).

Rochette chose to continue competing in her mother's honour. She recorded a new personal best in the short program, scoring 71.36 points, the third highest score of the night. Two days later, she held on to her third-place position after the long program and won the bronze medal. She became the fifth Canadian to win a medal in ladies' figure skating at the Olympics.

Rochette's performance at the 2010 Olympics figure skating gala on February 27 featured the original French version of Celine Dion's song "Fly", «Vole» as a tribute to her mother (a long-time fan of Dion), ending with her face raised to the heavens.

Because of her inspiring determination in the face of these circumstances, along with Petra Majdič, she received the inaugural Terry Fox Award for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Fellow Canadian Olympian Jon Montgomery described Rochette as having shown "so much heart and determination at the 2010 Games (...) What she displayed is honestly what the Olympics are all about." Rochette was chosen as the flag bearer for the closing ceremony.

Post-Olympics

In December 2010, Rochette was voted the Female Athlete of the Year by The Canadian Press.

She did not compete at the 2010 World Championships and later announced that she would not take part in the 2010–11 Grand Prix series. In an October 2012 interview, Rochette said she was weighing a return to competition. She confirmed in September 2013 that she would not compete for a spot to the 2014 Olympics but would travel to Sochi with the CBC for an undetermined role mainly in French.

In August 2017, Skate Canada announced Rochette would be inducted into the Skate Canada Hall of Fame as a member of the 2017 class.

Personal life

On February 21, 2010, two days before the beginning of ladies' figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, her mother, Thérèse Rochette, died of a heart attack at age 55 at Vancouver General Hospital after arriving to watch her compete; Rochette chose to remain in the competition and skate in her mother's honour. At her mother's funeral, she placed her Olympic bronze medal on the casket for some time. Rochette has been a spokesperson for the "iheartmom" campaign at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, which deals with raising awareness for heart disease in women. She has also worked with World Vision.

Rochette received her DEC from Collège André-Grasset’s Natural Sciences program in November 2011. It took 7 years for her to complete the program, which could have been finished in two or three years under normal circumstances. In the fall of 2015, she enrolled in a medical preparatory year at McGill University, and continued as a medical student in 2016. In September 2017, Rochette participated in a white coat ceremony at the start of her second year in the medical school.

Rochette earned her medical degree in April 2020 and announced that she would be working in Quebec's long-term care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joannie-Rochette-headshot-e1610397438865.jpg?quality=100&resize=350,522

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-03 00:07:14

1169) Sandi Morris

Summary

Sandi Morris (born July 8, 1992) is an American pole vault record holder. She won the silver medal in the pole vault event at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She also won silver at the pole vault event at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics and another silver at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics. In 2018 she won gold at the World Indoor Championships. Morris has a personal best vault of 4.95 m (16 ft 3 in) indoor, set on March 12, 2016 in Portland, Oregon. She matched this height at the 2018 World Indoor Champships when setting a new championship record. July 23, 2016, Morris cleared 4.93 m (16 ft 2 in) at American Track League in Houston at Rice University breaking Jennifer Suhr's American outdoor record in the pole vault. Morris cleared 5.00 m (16 ft 5 in) at 2016 IAAF Diamond League Memorial Van Damme in Brussels on September 9, 2016 to set the U.S. women's outdoor pole vault record.

Details

Sandi Morris is an energetic star of the Pole Vault world. An Olympian and a world record holder, Sandi has won the hearts of many sports enthusiasts with her stylish vaults.

Born 30 years ago to athletic parents, Sandi started sports when she was a kid. She played in high school and University till she turned pro in 2015.

Subsequently, with hard work, dedication, and continuous training, paved the way for the 2016 Rio Olympics, winning her Siver Medal.

Sandi’s personal best vault is 5.00 m ( 16 ft 5 in), and she aims to jump even higher in the days to come.

Sandi Morris was born July 8, 1992, to parents Harry Morris and Kerry Morris. She has a sister named Jami.

Sandi loved being outside and interacting with nature. In addition to that, she was fond of climbing trees and making mud pies in the backyard.

She was naturally athletic and could spend hours outdoors. Another personality that she possesses is her love for animals.

Her athleticism wasn’t a surprise to anyone, though. Both of her parents did sports during their time too. Her father did Pole Vaulting in college. Her mother, Kerry, was a pentathlete.

Sandi started track and field at the young age of six. She tried many disciplines first before being dedicated to pole vaulting.

Likewise, the school coach noticed her height and pace and thought she would be a good pole vaulter.

High School

She completed her high school education at Greenville High School, a medium-sized school in South Carolina.

While studying there, her mother, Kerry, was a track and field coach at the school.

But surprisingly, Sandi refused to be coached by her dad or mom. So they had to find a good coach.

In the process, they found Rusty Shealy. He is considered one of the best pole vaulting coaches of all time.

So her parents took her to Shealy’s cap in Columbia weekly to train her. The training was a successful step for her, as she started vaulting better.

In the meantime, Shealy began to travel to Greenville to tutor local kids. Morris began to make significant progress and compete for junior and senior titles.

She broke the state record by vaulting 12-7 in her final season.

Her high school career consisted of winning titles in South Carolina High School League twice, in 2009 and 2010. She also played volleyball during high school.

College

Sandi was one of the top sought-out vaulter recruits for college. For her first two years of University, she went to the University of North Carolina.

Whereas in the 2011 ACC Outdoor Championship, she secured third place. During UNC, her indoor personal best was 13-10.5, while her outdoor best was 14-1.25.

At the 2010 USATF Junior Olympics, she won a national title.

During these years, Sandi felt like her progress was stalled at UNC. She was neither doing well in class nor in Pole Vault.

University of Arkansas

After two years, in 2013, Morris transferred to the University of Arkansas. She is a graduate of broadcast journalism.

Her coach at Arkansas was Bryan Compton, an Olympics gold winner, and six national titles holders.

Under his wing, she grew immensely, now jumping higher than ever. At this time, she also broke the American Outdoor record.

In 2013, she ended fourth place in the NCAA Championships with a final clearance of 14-3.25.

During the Arkansas final qualifier, she established a personal best of 14-6.25. Due to some reasons, she did not compete during the outdoor season.

She started the 2014 season with sixth place at Clyde Littlefield Texas relays. Later that year, she stood first at the SEC Outdoor Championships.

Eventually, she finished that season with fourth place at NCAA Outdoor Championships.

Sandi ended her final year as a razorback with excellent performances. That year, she was announced NCAA Indoor Champion, SEC Indoor, and Outdoor Championship.

She was also awarded SEC Indoor Field Athlete of the Year. Out of nine events, she competed during the indoor season.

She won eight! Also, she set a record in NCAA Outdoors with a jump of 4.72m/15-5.75. Finally, Morris graduated in 2015 and started her professional career.

Professional Career

In the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, she placed 5th with a jump of 4.70. Her indoor personal best was 4.95, which she set in 2016 in Portland.

In July 2016, Morris jumped 4.93m at the American Track League in Houston, creating a new American Outdoor record in the Pole Vault.

Similarly, in the 2016 Diamond League in Brussels, she cleared 5.00m, setting new U.S women’s outdoor pole vault record.

The 2016 Rio Olympics was her first, where she bagged a Silver medal. She won Silver in the World Championships(2017) held in London.

While in 2018, she won gold with a 4.95m jump. In the 2019 Doha World championships, she jumped 4.90, winning a Silver. In 2020 she stood in the top 16 in Athletics at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.

World Indoor Championship 2022 Sandi stood first in Belgrade, Serbia. In World Athletics Championships held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, Sandi Morris won a Silver Medal with 4.82 m.

Hobbies

No doubt, Sandi is a gifted sportswoman. But it is also essential for any professional athlete to have hobbies outside sports. She enjoys horseback riding, singing, and playing guitar and Violin.

Another hobby she enjoys is gardening. She has a lot of indoor plants as well as outdoor ones in her backyard.

In her recent Instagram post, she joked that her house was turning into a jungle.

She is a lover of animals, mostly reptiles. Once she had around 28 snakes, but being a full-time athlete with frequent traveling barely leaves any time for 28.

So she had to downsize it to three. She now pets two red tail boas and a ball python.

She also has two Italian greyhounds, Rango and Nim. In addition to that, she pets two birds, Indi and Juniper.

The multi-talented athlete has also recorded a song in collaboration with the swiss band baba shrimps.

Husband

Sandi Morris has been dating her now-husband Tyrone Smith, since 2016. They attended the 2016 Olympics together, where they got to know each other.

Tyrone is a three-time Olympic long jumper. He was born in Bermuda but was raised in the USA. In the 2016 Olympics, he was the flag bearer of Bermuda in the parade of the nations.

During the 2018 diamond league final meet in Zurich, Tyrone flew from the USA to surprise her with a ring. Though she didn’t win the games, she went home with the natural diamond on her fingers.

The young couple got married in October 2019 in a beautiful ceremony.

What is Sandi Morris’s pole vault record?

In July 2016, Morris jumped 4.93m at the American track league in Houston, creating a new American outdoor record in the pole vault.

Similarly, in the 2016 Diamond League in Brussels, she cleared 5.00m, setting new U.S women’s outdoor pole vault record.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-04 21:51:53

1170) Katie Holmes

Summary

Kate Noelle Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress. She first achieved fame as Joey Potter on the television series Dawson's Creek (1998–2003).

Holmes made her feature film debut in 1997 with a supporting role in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. A mixture of parts in big-budget and small-scale film projects came next, including Go, Teaching Mrs. Tingle (both 1999), Wonder Boys, The Gift (both 2000), Abandon, Phone Booth (both 2002), The Singing Detective, Pieces of April (both 2003), First Daughter (2004), Batman Begins, Thank You for Smoking (both 2005), Mad Money (2008), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), Jack and Jill (2011), Miss Meadows (2014), Woman in Gold, Touched with Fire (both 2015), Logan Lucky (2017), Dear Dictator (2018), Coda (2019), Brahms: The Boy II, and The Secret: Dare to Dream (both 2020).

Outside of film, Holmes made her Broadway theatre debut in a 2008 production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. In 2011, she portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy in the television miniseries The Kennedys, a role she reprised in The Kennedys: After Camelot (2017). She also played the part of Paige Finney on the third season of Showtime's Ray Donovan in 2015. Holmes made her directorial debut with the 2016 film All We Had, in which she also starred, following in 2022, by her second movie Alone Together.

Holmes' marriage to actor Tom Cruise, which lasted from 2006 to 2012, led to a great deal of media attention. She has one child, a daughter, with Cruise.

Details

Kate Noelle Holmes, an American actress, director, and producer. She was first recognized as Joey Potter on the television series named Dawson’s Creek (1998–2003). She then got acknowledged for appearing in the debut film named ‘The Ice Storm’ directed by Ang Lee’.

Her other acting credits include Go, Teaching Mrs. Tingle (both 1999), Wonder Boys, The Gift (both 2000), Abandon, Phone Booth (both 2002), and many more that are worth watching. For her performances, she gained much praise from the audience.

Career

After making an appearance in the feature debut film named ‘The Ice Storm’, Holmes then subsequently appeared in ‘The Singing Detective’, Pieces of April (both 2003), Batman Begins, Thank You for Smoking (both 2005), Mad Money (2008), and others.

Among many others, Katie Holmes got recognized for her performances in ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), Jack and Jill (2011), Miss Meadows (2014), and Woman in Gold Touched with Fire (both 2015).

Her other acting credits are Logan Lucky (2017) and the independent film Coda which were considered among the most popular movies of the ear. Also, she has lent her voice to the video game ‘Batman Begins’ as Rachel Dawes in 2005.

However, the actress Katie Holmes became famous for her superb acting prowess and wonderful performances. She has been getting fame and appreciation from the viewers.

Achievements

The actress, Katie Holmes is the winner of many nominations including the five Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress for ‘Dawson’s Creek’ for the role of Joey Potter (1998 to 2003).

Katie Holmes Favorites

Hobbies: Shopping, Running, Listening Music, Reading, Arts and Crafts

Favorite Actor: Tom Hanks

Favorite Actress: Jodie Faster, Meg Ryan

Favorite Movie: My Best Friend’s Wedding

Favorite TV shows: Party of Five, ER

Favorite Food: Cookie Dough, Onion Rings, Pretzels with Salsa

Favorite Color: Deep Plum

Favorite Books: Washington Square by Henry James, The Ghost of Greenwich Village by Lorna Graham, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Favorite Pets: Dog.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-05 20:34:01

1171) Simon Singh

Summary

Simon Lehna Singh, (born 19 September 1964) is a British popular science author, theoretical and particle physicist. His written works include Fermat's Last Theorem (in the United States titled Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem), The Code Book (about cryptography and its history), Big Bang (about the Big Bang theory and the origins of the universe), Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial (about complementary and alternative medicine, co-written by Edzard Ernst) and The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets (about mathematical ideas and theorems hidden in episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama). In 2012 Singh founded the Good Thinking Society, through which he created the website "Parallel" to help students learn mathematics.

Singh has also produced documentaries and works for television to accompany his books, is a trustee of the National Museum of Science and Industry, a patron of Humanists UK, founder of the Good Thinking Society, and co-founder of the Undergraduate Ambassadors Scheme.

Early life and education

Singh was born in a Punjabi Sikh family to parents who emigrated from Punjab, India to Britain in 1950. He is the youngest of three brothers, his eldest brother being Tom Singh, the founder of the UK New Look chain of stores. Singh grew up in Wellington, Somerset, attending Wellington School, and went on to Imperial College London, where he studied physics. He was active in the student union, becoming President of the Royal College of Science Union. Later he completed a PhD in particle physics at the University of Cambridge as a postgraduate student of Emmanuel College, Cambridge while working at CERN, Geneva.

Details: Biography: From his words

The Early Years…

My family have been farmers for generations in Punjab, India. In 1938, my grandfather left his village of Thakarki and settled in Somerset in the southwest of England, and in 1950 my parents emigrated to Taunton. A few years later they moved to Wellington, and that is where I was born.

Although I did not know it at the time, Somerset is a fertile ground for budding scientists. Just 5 miles from where I was born is the town of Milverton, the birthplace of Thomas Young, the polymath who made breakthroughs in a wide range of subjects. Most important of all, he advocated the wave theory of light. He studied at Emmanuel College Cambridge, and in due I course I attended the same college, but I failed to make any significant contributions to the foundations of physics.

My mum always emphasised the importance of education, my dad got me interested in how things work and my big sister made sure I did my homework. It was not long before I was doing well at St John’s Primary School and at the age of nine I declared that I wanted to be a nuclear physicist. Bizarrely, I actually remember this moment with clarity.

Although I considered being a glam rocker and a footballer, I stuck to my scientific ambitions, largely inspired by TV boffins. I have always loved watching TV, and the early 1970s was great for scientists on the box. This was post-Apollo era, so Patrick Moore and James Burke had become prime time TV stars. Alongside them, Carl Sagan, Magnus Pyke and Heinz Wolff became my role models.

I think that it is great to have some idea of what you want to do with your life. I was lucky that I realised that my future lay in science, so I knew where to concentrate my efforts. I studied A levels in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and thanks to my great teachers I managed to get the grades I needed to study physics at Imperial College, part of the University of London. I had originally applied to Cambridge University, but they rejected me. In hindsight, it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.

The College Years…

Before starting my physics degree at Imperial College, London, I spent a year at GEC Hirst Research Centre, Wembley, working on gallium math monolithic microwave integrated circuits. GEC were sponsoring me during my studies. It was an interesting year and I grew up a bit, but the main lesson I learned was that my future did not rest in industrial research and development.

Instead, I knuckled down, studied hard and aimed for a career in academia. However, while working for my degree, I did a few things that in hindsight helped to set me on the course that I am currently on. My first adventures in writing involved occasional articles for student newspapers and helping to edit a couple of newsletters, namely Schrodinger’s Cat for the physics department and Otto for my hall of residence. I did not write for college newspapers with the intention of being a journalist, but it turned out to be my stepping stone to journalism when my career path took a dog leg.

It is often strange how an experience at one point in your life unintentionally turns out to be exactly what you need a few years down the line. Another example of this occurred after my second year of studying physics. I spent the summer at the University of Delaware on the American East Coast, as part of a student exchange programme. This was one my happiest summers and it would not have happened if I had not previously worked at GEC. My year at GEC gave me the perfect qualification for the position at Delaware, because they both involved gallium math. However, I had not gone to GEC in order to get a job in Delaware.

Between leaving Imperial College and starting my PhD, I spent a couple of months teaching at Doon School in Dehra Dun, one of the best schools in India. Once again, this is an illustration of how an experience paid off in an unexpected way. I taught in order to travel and live in India for a while, but the teaching experience that I picked up would become invaluable when I became a journalist, as I learned how to explain scientific concepts in a vivid and clear way.

My PhD in experimental particle physics was based at Cambridge University, but I spent most of my three years working at the European Centre for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva. I worked as part of the UA2 collaboration, which had previously won the Nobel Prize for discovering the W and Z bosons. It was a wonderful three years.

CERN has a network of so-called accelerators. These accelerators smash particles together, often matter and antimatter travelling almost at the speed of light. In the case of my experiment, we were colliding protons and antiprotons, in the hope that the intense energy of the impact would create other particles.

Theory suggests that there is a particle called the top quark, and we hoped that the collisions would create some of these hitherto unseen particles. We ran our experiment for a couple of years, smashing billions of particles in the accelerator, but there was no sign of the top quark. Nevertheless, by its absence, I could deduce something about the top quark, so I was still able to complete my thesis.

The top quark was eventually discovered at America’s Fermi Laboratory in the early 1990s, just a couple years after I finished my PhD. It turned out that the top quark was surprisingly massive, and our accelerator at CERN had simply not been powerful enough.

Particle physics was great fun. My three years at Cambridge and CERN were challenging and stimulating. However, I could see that there were people around me who were on a different planet when it came to understanding and researching physics, and it would be they who would go on to make their names as pioneers. As for me, it was time to change career. I had always enjoyed talking about and explaining science, so I took the decision to move towards a career in journalism and science communication. In particular, I have always loved television and felt that this was the most influential medium, so I started applying for a job at the BBC.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-06 21:44:11

1172) John M. Ball

Sir John Macleod Ball (born 19 May 1948) is a British mathematician and former Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He was the president of the International Mathematical Union from 2003 to 2006 and a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford.

Ball was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge and Sussex University, and prior to taking up his Oxford post was a professor of mathematics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Ball's research interests include elasticity, the calculus of variations, and infinite-dimensional dynamical systems. He was knighted in the New Year Honours list for 2006 "for services to Science". He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

He was a member of the first Abel Prize Committee in 2002 and for the Fields Medal Committee in 1998. From 1996 to 1998 he was president of the London Mathematical Society, and from 2003 to 2006 he was president of the International Mathematical Union, IMU. In October 2011 he was elected on the Executive Board of ICSU for a three-year period starting January 2012. Ball is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher.

Along with Stuart S. Antman he won the Theodore von Kármán Prize in 1999. In 2018 he received the King Faisal International Prize in Mathematics.

Ball received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1998.

He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1980. He also holds a visiting position at the University of Edinburgh.

Personal life

He is married to Lady Sedhar Chozam-Ball, actress, and has three children.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-08 00:11:41

1173) M. C. Escher

Summary

Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for most of his life neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. In the late twentieth century, he became more widely appreciated, and in the twenty-first century he has been celebrated in exhibitions around the world.

His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic geometry, and tessellations. Although Escher believed he had no mathematical ability, he interacted with the mathematicians George Pólya, Roger Penrose, Harold Coxeter and crystallographer Friedrich Haag, and conducted his own research into tessellation.

Early in his career, he drew inspiration from nature, making studies of insects, landscapes, and plants such as lichens, all of which he used as details in his artworks. He traveled in Italy and Spain, sketching buildings, townscapes, architecture and the tilings of the Alhambra and the Mezquita of Cordoba, and became steadily more interested in their mathematical structure.

Escher's art became well known among scientists and mathematicians, and in popular culture, especially after it was featured by Martin Gardner in his April 1966 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. Apart from being used in a variety of technical papers, his work has appeared on the covers of many books and albums. He was one of the major inspirations of Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach.

Details

M.C. Escher, in full Maurits Cornelis Escher, (born June 17, 1898, Leeuwarden, Netherlands—died March 27, 1972, Laren), was a Dutch graphic artist known for his detailed realistic prints that achieve bizarre optical and conceptual effects.

Maurits Cornelis Escher was the youngest of five boys and was raised by his father, George Escher, a civil engineer, and his father’s second wife, Sarah Gleichman. Maurits was a sickly and creative child drawn to music and carpentry, and, although he was influenced by his father’s engineering, he did not excel at mathematics. In fact, he failed several of his final exams and never technically completed his high-school education.

From 1919 to 1922 Escher studied at the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem, Netherlands, where he developed an interest in graphics and worked mainly in woodcut under the direction of his teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. He spent a number of years traveling and sketching throughout Europe, living in Italy from 1922 to 1935 and then moving to Switzerland and Belgium. In his prints and drawings from this period, Escher depicted landscapes and natural forms in a fantastic fashion by using multiple, conflicting perspectives.

Escher’s mature style emerged after 1937 in a series of prints that combined meticulous realism with enigmatic optical illusions. Working in lithograph, wood engraving, and woodcut, he portrayed with great technical virtuosity impossible architectural spaces and unexpected metamorphoses of one object into another. Sometimes referred to as the “father of modern tessellations,” Escher commonly used geometric grids to form intricate interlocking designs. His series Regular Division of the Plane (begun in 1936) is a collection of his tessellated drawings, many of which feature animals. He also explored mezzotint, a demanding and precise technique involving metal engraving, with which he produced some of his famous works in black and white, including Eye (1946), Gallery (1946), Crystal (1947), and Dewdrop (1948). In all, Escher composed some 450 lithographs, woodcuts, and wood engravings and about 2,000 drawings and sketches in his lifetime. His images were of equal interest to mathematicians, cognitive psychologists, and the general public, and they were widely reproduced throughout the 20th century.

M.C.+Escher.jpg

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-10 00:05:36

1174) Salma Hayek

Summary

Salma Hayek Pinault (born Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez; September 2, 1966) is a Mexican-American actress and producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela Teresa (1989–1991) as well as the romantic drama El Callejón de los Milagros (1995), for which she received an Ariel Award nomination. She soon established herself in Hollywood with appearances in films such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk till Dawn (1996), Wild Wild West (1999), and Dogma (1999).

Hayek's portrayal of painter Frida Kahlo in the biographical film Frida (2002), which she also produced, made her the first Mexican actress to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and additionally earned her Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and British Academy Film Award nominations. In subsequent years, Hayek focused more on producing while starring in the action-centered pictures Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), After the Sunset (2004) and Bandidas (2006). She achieved further commercial success with the comedies Grown Ups (2010), Grown Ups 2 (2013) and The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017); lent her voice for the animated Puss in Boots (2011), The Pirates! (2012) and Sausage Party (2016); and received critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas Tale of Tales (2015), Beatriz at Dinner (2017) and House of Gucci (2021). She played Ajak in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals (2021), which emerged as her highest-grossing live action film.

Hayek's directing, producing and acting work on television has earned her four Emmy Awards nominations. She won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children Special for The Maldonado Miracle (2004) and received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, one for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series and the other for Outstanding Comedy Series, for her work on the ABC television comedy-drama Ugly Betty (2006–10). She also produced and played Minerva Mirabal in the Showtime film In the Time of the Butterflies (2001) and guest-starred on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock (2009–2013). As a public figure, Hayek has been cited as one of Hollywood's most powerful and influential Latina actresses as well as one of the world's most beautiful women by various media outlets. She is married to business magnate François-Henri Pinault, with whom she has a daughter.

Details

Salma Hayek, in full Salma Valgarma Hayek Jiménez, married name Salma Hayek Pinault, (born September 2, 1966, Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico), is a Mexican American actress, director, and producer who, at the end of the 20th century, broke barriers as one of the first Latina actresses to establish a successful film career in the United States.

Hayek grew up in Mexico but attended Catholic school in New Orleans before enrolling at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. In the capital she was noticed by television producers who cast her in the Mexican daytime television drama Teresa (1989). In 1991 Hayek moved to Los Angeles to pursue a film career. After taking a small part in Mi vida loca (1993; My Crazy Life), she was noticed by director Robert Rodriguez, who cast her in Desperado (1995), alongside Antonio Banderas. Exposure in the action film catapulted the young actress into stardom. Her next major role was in another Rodriguez film, From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a gory vampire movie that also starred George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino. In 1997 she appeared opposite Matthew Perry in the romantic comedy Fools Rush In and two years later portrayed an exotic dancer and muse in the religious satire Dogma (1999).

In 2002 Hayek both produced and starred in Frida, a biopic about the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including a best actress nod for Hayek. She also earned critical praise for her directorial debut, the television movie The Maldonado Miracle (2003). The inspirational drama, set in a struggling small town that becomes the site of an alleged miracle, earned Hayek an Emmy Award for outstanding direction. Hayek later became executive producer of the hit television series Ugly Betty (2006–10), a comedy set at a fashion magazine. She also had recurring roles on that show, in 2006–07, and on the sitcom 30 Rock, in 2009. Meanwhile, she continued to act in such films as Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), with Banderas and Johnny Depp; After the Sunset (2004); Ask the Dust (2006), based on the novel by John Fante; and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009).

In 2009 Hayek married French business executive François-Henri Pinault (son of François Pinault). After costarring with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock in the comedy Grown Ups (2010), Hayek portrayed a ruthless drug kingpin in Oliver Stone’s Savages (2012) and the love interest for an aspiring mixed martial artist in the comedy Here Comes the Boom (2012). Hayek then controversially played a woman who must use violence to extract herself from enslavement in the sanguinary action film Everly (2014). In Il racconto dei racconti (2015; Tale of Tales), an adaptation of a book of fairy tales by 17th-century author Giambattista Basile, she depicted a queen who impregnates herself by way of a magical ritual that requires her to eat the heart of a sea monster. She later appeared in a series of comedies that included How to Be a Latin Lover (2017), Beatriz at Dinner (2017), Drunk Parents (2018), and The Hummingbird Project (2018). In the action comedies The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (2021), Hayek played a woman married to an assassin.

Her credits from 2020 included the comedy Like a Boss, in which she portrayed a ruthless cosmetics titan, and The Roads Not Taken, about a man (played by Javier Bardem) imagining alternate lives. In the sci-fi dramedy Bliss (2021), Hayek was cast as a woman who believes the world is a computer simulation. Also in 2021 she starred as the immortal Ajak in Eternals, an action film that was part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition, Hayek lent her voice to several animated films, including Puss in Boots (2011), which featured Banderas in the title role, and The Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012).

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-12 00:05:31

1175) Martina Hingis

Summary

Martina Hingis (born Martina Hingisová; 30 September 1980) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. Hingis is the first Swiss player, male or female, to win a major title and attain a world No. 1 ranking. She spent a total of 209 weeks as the singles world No. 1 and 90 weeks as doubles world No. 1, holding both No. 1 rankings simultaneously for 29 weeks. She won five major singles titles, 13 major women's doubles titles (including the Grand Slam in 1998), and seven major mixed doubles titles, for a combined total of 25 major titles. In addition, she won the season-ending WTA Finals twice in singles and thrice in doubles, an Olympic silver medal in doubles, and a record 17 Tier I singles titles.

Hingis set a series of "youngest-ever" records during the 1990s, including youngest-ever Grand Slam champion and youngest-ever world No. 1. Before ligament injuries in both ankles forced her to withdraw temporarily from professional tennis in early 2003, at the age of 22, she had won 40 singles titles and 36 doubles titles and, according to Forbes, was the highest-paid female athlete in the world for five consecutive years, 1997 to 2001. After several surgeries and long recoveries, Hingis returned to the WTA Tour in 2006, climbing to world No. 6, winning two Tier I tournaments, and receiving the Laureus World Sports Award for Comeback of the Year. She retired in November 2007 after being hampered by a hip injury for several months.

In July 2013, Hingis again returned from retirement to play the doubles events of the North American hardcourt season. During her doubles-only comeback, she won four major women's doubles tournaments, six major mixed doubles tournaments (completing the career Grand Slam in mixed doubles), 27 WTA Tour titles, and the silver medal in women's doubles at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Hingis retired for the third and final time after the 2017 WTA Finals, while ranked as the world No. 1.

Widely considered an all-time tennis great, Hingis was ranked by Tennis magazine in 2005 as the eighth-greatest female player of the preceding 40 years. She was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by TIME in June 2011. In 2013, Hingis was elected into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and was appointed two years later the organization's first ever Global Ambassador.

Details

Martina Hingis, (born September 30, 1980, Košice, Czechoslovakia [now in Slovakia]), is a Swiss professional tennis player who became the youngest person in the “open” era to win a Grand Slam singles title and the youngest to be ranked world number one. In her relatively short, injury-plagued career, she won five Grand Slam singles titles—the Australian Open (1997, 1998, 1999), Wimbledon (1997), and the United States Open (1997).

Hingis, who was named for the legendary tennis player Martina Navratilova, was introduced to sports by her mother, Melanie Molitor, a former top tennis player in Czechoslovakia, and her father, Karol Hingis, a tennis coach. The younger Hingis could ski and play tennis at three, and she began entering tennis tournaments at five. Following her parents’ divorce, she moved with her mother to Trübbach, Switzerland, at seven. Molitor then began coaching her daughter in tennis intensively, and Hingis improved rapidly. At 12 she became the youngest-ever Grand Slam junior titlist when she won the 1993 junior French Open. In 1994 Hingis won in France again and then became the youngest junior Wimbledon champion weeks later.

In October 1994, shortly after her 14th birthday, Hingis turned professional. Three months later she became the youngest player to win a match at a Grand Slam event when she advanced to the second round of the 1995 Australian Open. Partnered with Helena Sukova, Hingis became the youngest player ever to win at Wimbledon when the pair took the doubles title in 1996. Hingis’s decision to turn pro at such a young age, however, was controversial. Soon after her pro debut, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) instituted new rules that prohibited 14-year-olds from regular tour events and limited the number of tournaments in which 15–17-year-olds could compete.

Hingis opened 1997 ranked fourth in the world and won six straight tournaments, including the Australian Open. With that victory she became, at age 16, the second youngest player ever to win a Grand Slam; Lottie Dod had won Wimbledon at age 15 in 1887. During the year Hingis also gained the top ranking. Not known for her power, Hingis instead dominated opponents with smart play and a diverse range of shots. Her winning streak was halted when she was upset by Iva Majoli in the French Open final, but she rebounded to win at Wimbledon and at the United States Open. Over the next several years, she often advanced to the finals at the Grand Slam tournaments and won the Australian Open in 1998 and 1999. In 2001 she underwent ankle surgery but reached the finals at the 2002 Australian Open, where she was defeated by Jennifer Capriati.

Plagued by further injuries, Hingis retired in 2003. Two years later, however, she returned to the WTA. Injuries and the rise of powerful players, notably the sisters Venus and Serena Williams, limited her wins. In 2007 Hingis retired from professional tennis after announcing that she had tested positive at that year’s Wimbledon. Although she denied having taken the drug, she received a two-year ban. Her career totals included 43 singles titles and 10 Grand Slam doubles titles (women’s and mixed doubles). In addition, she had been ranked number one for 209 nonconsecutive weeks. Hingis subsequently competed in seniors events.Plagued by further injuries, Hingis retired in 2003. Two years later, however, she returned to the WTA. Injuries and the rise of powerful players, notably the sisters Venus and Serena Williams, limited her wins. In 2007 Hingis retired from professional tennis after announcing that she had tested positive at that year’s Wimbledon. Although she denied having taken the drug, she received a two-year ban. Her career totals included 43 singles titles and 10 Grand Slam doubles titles (women’s and mixed doubles). In addition, she had been ranked number one for 209 nonconsecutive weeks. Hingis subsequently competed in seniors events.

In 2013 Hingis was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Later that year she returned to the WTA, playing doubles events. She won an additional 10 Grand Slam doubles titles before retiring for a third time in 2017.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-14 00:02:06

1176) Maria Sharapova

Summary

Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (born 19 April 1987) is a Russian former world No. 1 tennis player. She competed on the WTA Tour from 2001 to 2020 and was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 21 weeks. She is one of ten women, and the only Russian, to achieve the career Grand Slam. She is also an Olympic medalist, having won silver in women's singles at the 2012 London Olympics.

Sharapova became the world No. 1 for the first time on 22 August 2005 at the age of 18, becoming the first Russian woman to top the singles rankings, and last held the position for a fifth time for four weeks from 11 June 2012, to 8 July 2012. She won five major titles — two at the French Open and one each at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. She won 36 titles in total, including the year-end championships in her debut in 2004. She also won three doubles titles. Although she played under the banner of Russia with the WTA, she has lived in and been a United States permanent resident since 1994.

Sharapova failed a drug test at the 2016 Australian Open, testing positive for meldonium, a substance that had been banned (effective January 1, 2016) by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). On 8 June 2016, she was suspended from playing tennis for two years by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). On 4 October 2016, the suspension was reduced to 15 months, starting from the date of the failed test, as the Court of Arbitration for Sport found that she had committed "no significant fault" and that she had taken the substance "based on a doctor's recommendation… with good faith belief that it was appropriate and compliant with the relevant rules". She returned to the WTA Tour on 26 April 2017 at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.

Sharapova has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has appeared in many advertisements, including those for Nike, Prince, and Canon, and has been the face of several fashion houses, most notably Cole Haan. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time and in March 2012 was named one of the "100 Greatest of All Time" by Tennis Channel. According to Forbes, she has been the highest-paid female athlete in the world for 11 consecutive years and earned US$285 million (including prize money) since she turned pro in 2001. In 2018, she launched a new program to mentor women entrepreneurs.

Details

Maria Sharapova, in full Maria Yuryevna Sharapova, (born April 19, 1987, Nyagan, Russia), is a Russian tennis player who was one of the game’s leading contenders in the early 21st century, the winner of five Grand Slam titles.

Sharapova began playing tennis as a young child, and in 1993 she caught the attention of Czech-born American tennis star Martina Navratilova. Following a suggestion by Navratilova, Sharapova and her father moved (1994) to Florida, where she quickly earned a scholarship to a tennis academy. In 2001, at the age of 14, she turned pro. At the time, women’s tennis was shifting to a power game, which suited Sharapova’s dominating style of play and her size; she eventually reached a height of 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 metres). In 2003 she competed in every Grand Slam event, with her best finish coming at Wimbledon, where she reached the fourth round. That year she won her first Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) titles, at Tokyo and Quebec City. In 2004 she defeated Serena Williams in the final at Wimbledon to win her first Grand Slam. The following year Sharapova was ranked number one for the first time in her career, reaching the semifinals at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open. In 2006 she won the latter event, and in 2008 she claimed her third Grand Slam, at the Australian Open.

Later that year, however, Sharapova was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, an injury that eventually required surgery. She returned to the court in mid-2009, and over the next two seasons she claimed several WTA titles, though a Grand Slam championship eluded her; Sharapova’s best result occurred in 2011, when she lost the Wimbledon finals. She returned to form in 2012, however, winning the French Open to become just the seventh female player in the Open era to complete a career Grand Slam. That year she also captured a silver medal at the London Olympic Games. After a solid start in 2013—highlighted by an appearance in the French Open final, which she lost to Williams—a shoulder injury forced Sharapova to miss the last six months of the season. She returned to competitive play in 2014, and later that year she won the French Open, her fifth Grand Slam.

In March 2016 Sharapova revealed that she had taken meldonium (marketed as Mildronate)—a heart medication that had recently been added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned substances—during the Australian Open earlier in the year. Three months later she was suspended from tennis for two years by the International Tennis Federation for her meldonium-induced failure of a drug test. (Her suspension was reduced to 15 months upon appeal.) Sharapova returned to the WTA tour in April 2017. However, she struggled to regain her form and continued to be plagued by injuries. In 2020 she announced her retirement. Her memoir, Unstoppable: My Life So Far (written with Rich Cohen), was published in 2017.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-16 00:02:42

1177) Justine Henin

Summary

Justine Henin (born 1 June 1982) is a Belgian former professional tennis player. She spent a total of 117 weeks as the world No. 1 and was the year-end No. 1 in 2003, 2006 and 2007. Henin, coming from a country with limited success in tennis, helped establish Belgium as a leading force in women's tennis with Kim Clijsters, and led the country to its first Fed Cup crown in 2001. She was known for her all-court style of play and for being one of the few female players to use a single-handed backhand.

Henin won seven Grand Slam singles titles: winning the French Open in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007, the US Open in 2003 and 2007 and the Australian Open in 2004. At Wimbledon, she was the runner-up in 2001 and 2006. She also won a gold medal in the women's singles at the 2004 Olympic Games and won the year-ending WTA Tour Championships in 2006 and 2007. In total, she won 43 WTA singles titles.

Tennis experts cite her mental toughness, the completeness and variety of her game, her footspeed and footwork, and her one-handed backhand (which John McEnroe described as "the best single-handed backhand in both the women's or men's game") as the principal reasons for her success. She retired from professional tennis on 26 January 2011, due to a chronic elbow injury. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time. She is widely considered one of the greatest female tennis players of all time. In 2016, she became the first Belgian tennis player inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Details

Justine Henin, (born June 1, 1982, Liège, Belgium), is a Belgian tennis player, whose strong serve and powerful one-handed backhand elevated her to the top of the women’s game in the first decade of the 21st century.

Henin set high standards as a junior competitor, taking the Junior Orange Bowl international tennis championship crown in Miami in 1996 and winning the French Open junior championships the following year. She turned professional on January 1, 1999, at age 16, and in 2000 she finished among the top 50 players in the world. She married Pierre-Yves Hardenne in 2002, and she competed as Justine Henin-Hardenne until her divorce in 2007.

During the 2003 season she captured two major championships, ousting fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters in the finals of both the French Open and the U.S. Open; her victory on the clay courts at Roland Garros in the French Open marked her first Grand Slam title. Moreover, she was victorious in 75 of 86 matches, winning 8 tournaments altogether and reaching the semifinals or better in 16 of the 20 events she entered. Her remarkable consistency and determination enabled her to finish the year as the top-ranked player in the women’s game.

Henin’s run continued with a victory at the 2004 Australian Open, but a virus sidelined her in the weeks leading to the French Open. Her departure in the second round at Roland Garros made her the first top-seeded woman at the tournament to lose before the third round. She did not compete again until the Olympic Games in Athens. Remarkably, she rescued herself from 1–5 down in the final set of her semifinal against French Open victor Anastasiya Myskina of Russia and then took the gold medal over Amélie Mauresmo of France. At the U.S. Open two weeks later, however, Henin was ousted in the fourth round—the first time since 1980 that a number-one seed had been beaten before the semifinals in that tournament. Soon after, the Belgian champion announced that she would not compete for the remainder of the year.

The 2005 French Open saw a return to championship form for Henin, who entered the tournament as the 10th seed. She reestablished her dominance of the clay at Roland Garros with championships in 2005 and 2006, and she reached the finals of every other Grand Slam event in 2006. Henin did not compete at the 2007 Australian Open, in order to handle her divorce, but several months later she earned her third consecutive French Open victory, becoming only the second woman to accomplish that feat since 1937. She also set a French Open record by winning 35 consecutive sets. In 2007 Henin won her second U.S. Open title.

Henin stunned the tennis world in May 2008 when she announced her immediate retirement from the sport, despite being ranked the number one player at the time. She cited fatigue and a recent stretch of poor play as reasons for her retirement, and she left the game just two weeks before she was to defend her title at the French Open. However, she announced in September 2009 that she would return to competitive tennis the following January. In just the second tournament of her comeback, Henin reached the 2010 Australian Open final, which she lost to Serena Williams. However, a lingering elbow injury forced her to again retire from the sport in January 2011. Henin was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2016.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-18 00:17:58

1178) Venus Williams

Summary

Venus Williams , in full Venus Ebony Starr Williams, (born June 17, 1980, Lynwood, California, U.S.), is an American tennis player who—along with her sister Serena—redefined the sport with her strength and superb athleticism.

Like her sister Serena, Venus was introduced to tennis on the public courts in Los Angeles by her father, who early on recognized her talent and oversaw her development. She turned professional in 1994 and soon attracted attention for her powerful serves and ground strokes. In 1997 she became the first unseeded U.S. Open women’s finalist in the open era; she lost to Martina Hingis. In 2000 Williams won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and she successfully defended her titles in 2001.

At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Williams captured the gold medal in the singles competition and claimed a gold medal with her sister in the doubles event. In 2002 Serena defeated Venus in the finals of the French Open, the U.S. Open, and Wimbledon, but in 2005 Venus captured the Wimbledon championship. She struggled with injuries and competed in only a few tournaments the following year but went on to win her fourth Wimbledon in 2007. In 2008 Venus defeated Serena for a fifth career Wimbledon title, placing her fifth all-time in women’s Wimbledon singles championships. That same year the Williams sisters won their second Olympic gold medal in tennis doubles, this time in Beijing. The following year they met again at the finals of Wimbledon, though this time Serena prevailed.

In the ensuing years, Venus’s play declined, though in 2016 she won her 49th tournament. She did not return to a Grand Slam singles final until the 2017 Australian Open, where she lost to Serena. Later that year Venus reached the finals at Wimbledon but was defeated.

Details

Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is widely regarded as one of the all-time greats of the sport.

Along with her younger sister, Serena, Venus Williams was coached by her parents Oracene Price and Richard Williams. Turning professional in 1994, she reached her first major final at the 1997 US Open. In 2000 and 2001, Williams claimed the Wimbledon and US Open titles, as well as Olympic singles gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She first reached the singles world No. 1 ranking on 25 February 2002, becoming the first African American woman to do so in the Open Era, and the second of all-time after Althea Gibson. She reached four consecutive major finals between 2002 and 2003, but lost each time to Serena. She then suffered from injuries, winning just one major title between 2003 and 2006. Williams returned to form starting in 2007, when she won Wimbledon (a feat she repeated the following year). In 2010, she returned to the world No. 2 position in singles, but then suffered again from injuries. Starting in 2014, she again gradually returned to form, culminating in two major final appearances at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2017.

Along with her seven singles major titles, Williams has also won 14 women's doubles major titles, all partnering Serena; the pair is unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals. She became the world No. 1 in doubles for the first time on June 7, 2010, alongside Serena, after the pair completed a non-calendar-year Grand Slam at the French Open. The pair also won three Olympic gold medals in women's doubles, in 2000, 2008, and 2012, adding to Venus' singles gold in 2000 and her mixed doubles silver in 2016. Williams has also won two mixed doubles major titles, both in 1998.

The Williams sisters are credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women's professional tennis tour. With 49 WTA Tour singles titles, Williams trails only her sister Serena among active players with the most singles titles. With 22 WTA doubles titles and two mixed doubles titles, her combined total of 73 WTA titles is also second among active players behind Serena. She is also one of only two active players to have reached the singles finals of all four majors, along with Serena. Williams was twice the season prize money leader (in 2001 and 2017), and ranks second behind Serena in all-time career prize money winnings, having earned over US$42 million as of March 2022.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-19 21:00:43

1179) Jennifer Capriati

Summary

Jennifer Maria Capriati (born March 29, 1976) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. A member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, she won three singles Grand Slam tournaments and was the gold medalist at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Capriati set a number of youngest-ever records at the start of her career. She made her professional debut in 1990 at the age of 13 years, 11 months, reaching the final of the hard-court tournament in Boca Raton, Florida. She reached the semifinals of the French Open in her debut and later became the youngest ever player to reach the top 10 at age 14 years, 235 days in October of that year. Following a first-round loss at the 1993 US Open, she took a 14-month break from competitive pro tennis. Her personal struggles during this time were well documented by the press.

In 1998, Capriati won her first Grand Slam singles match in five years at Wimbledon. During the next two years, she slowly returned to championship form, winning her first title in six years in Strasbourg in 1999 and regaining a top-20 ranking. At the 2001 Australian Open, the reinvigorated Capriati became the lowest seed ever to win the championship when she defeated Martina Hingis in straight sets for her first Grand Slam championship. She also won the French Open that year, claiming the Women's Tennis Association No. 1 ranking in October. After successfully defending her Australian Open title in 2002, she became a top-10 mainstay until injuries derailed her career in 2004. She won 14 professional singles tournaments during her career, along with one women's doubles championship.

Details

Jennifer Capriati, in full Jennifer Maria Capriati, (born March 29, 1976, New York, New York, U.S.), is an American tennis player who first achieved success as a teenage prodigy. Her play later suffered amid various personal issues, but she staged a comeback, winning the Australian Open (2001 and 2002) and the French Open (2001).

Capriati was born in New York City and lived in Spain until age four, when her family moved to Florida so that she could pursue a tennis career. She quickly attracted attention with her innate talent and bubbly personality. By the time she turned professional in 1990, she had earned more than $6 million in endorsements. During her first year on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tour, Capriati set a number of records, including becoming the youngest player to reach the semifinals at a Grand Slam event (the French Open) and to win a match at Wimbledon. In late 1990 she won her first professional title, the Puerto Rico Open, and finished the year ranked in the WTA top 10—the youngest player ever to do so. With powerful strokes and incredible consistency, Capriati continued to impress in 1991, reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open. In 1992 she defeated Steffi Graf to capture a gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Barcelona.

The pressures of professional play and her parents’ divorce, however, began to take their toll on Capriati. After an unexpected first-round loss at the U.S. Open in 1993, she took a break from the tour. Though she returned to the tour in 1994, she lacked commitment, was not in shape, and faced intense media scrutiny. Playing well only sporadically, Capriati managed to win just one match at a Grand Slam tournament between 1994 and 1998.

In 1999 Capriati dedicated herself to getting fit and that year claimed her first title since 1993. She finished 1999 ranked number 23 in the world, and the following year—with her father as her coach—Capriati climbed in the rankings to number 14. At the 2001 Australian Open, in her first Grand Slam final, she upset top-seeded Martina Hingis 6–4, 6–3. With that victory Capriati entered the top 10 for the first time in seven years. Her comeback continued at the French Open. Two points from defeat, she rallied to overcome Kim Clijsters in a three-set thriller (1–6, 6–4, 12–10) to take the title. Her bid for a Grand Slam (winning all four major events in one year), however, ended with a semifinal loss at Wimbledon. Capriati successfully defended her Australian Open title in 2002 with a dramatic come-from-behind victory over Hingis, but a series of wrist and shoulder injuries sidelined her after the 2004 season, and, in spite of multiple surgeries, she was unable to return to professional play. In 2012 Capriati was selected for induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-21 00:04:44

1180) Monica Seles

Summary

Monica Seles (born December 2, 1973) is a retired professional tennis player who represented Yugoslavia and the United States. A former world No. 1, she won nine Grand Slam singles titles, eight of them as a teenager while representing Yugoslavia, and the final one while representing the United States.

In 1990, Seles became the youngest-ever French Open champion at the age of 16. She went on to win eight Grand Slam singles titles before her 20th birthday and was the year-end No. 1 in 1991 and 1992. However, on April 30, 1993, while playing a match against Magdalena Maleeva, she was the victim of an on-court attack when an obsessed fan of Seles rival Steffi Graf stabbed Seles in the back with a 9-inch (23 cm) long knife as she was sitting down between games. Seles did not return to tennis for over two years after the stabbing. Though she enjoyed some success after returning to tennis in 1995, including victory at the 1996 Australian Open, she was unable to consistently produce her best tennis. She played her last professional match at the 2003 French Open, but did not officially retire until February 2008.

Regarded by many as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, Seles was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time. Several players and historians have stated that Seles had the potential to become one of the most accomplished female players of all time had she not been stabbed. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2009.

Details

But for a crazed German fan of Steffi Graf, a nine-inch knife, and lax tournament security, many tennis experts feel Monica Seles might have become the greatest female tennis player of all-time. Seles was born in Novi Sad, in what was then Yugoslavia. She came to prominence as a teenager, winning the 1990 French Open when she was only 16-years-old. In the next three years Seles won the French Open three times (1990-92), the Australian Open three times (1991-93), and the US Open twice (1991-92). She also lost in the Wimbledon final, to Graf, in 1992. Seles took over the #1 world ranking from Graf in March 1991, and with her youth and her power, especially on the forehand side, she appeared set to win multiple Grand Slam events in the coming decade.

On 30 April 1993, Seles was playing Magdalena Maleeva in a match in Hamburg, Germany. On one of the breaks, Günter Parche, a crazed fan of Graf’s, ran from the crowd and stabbed Seles in the back, near a shoulder blade. Physically, the wounds were somewhat superficial, but the emotional trauma of the attack never left her. Parche was charged with the assault and battery, but was ruled psychologically unstable and never served time. Seles was outraged over the final ruling and vowed to never compete in Germany again.

Seles was eventually treated at the Steadman-Hawkins Clinic in Vail, Colorado, and later settled permanently in the United States, becoming a US citizen in March 1994. She had first come to the US to train in 1986 at the Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida. Seles eventually represented the US at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, and competed from 1994 onward under the US flag. She helped the US win the Fed Cup in 1996, 1999, and 2000.

Seles returned to the WTA Tour in August 1995. There was some discussion of returning her to the #1 ranking, alongside then #1 Steffi Graf, and this occurred despite some criticism. She made it to the final of the 1995 and 1996 US Open, losing both to Graf, and Seles won the 1996 Australian Open, but she was never again the dominant player she had been before the attack. Seles also lost in the final of the 1998 French Open. After the attack Seles won six WTA titles, including the 2000 Italian Open.

Seles effectively retired during the 2003 season, hobbled by a foot injury, although her formal retirement announcement came only in November 2008. Considered one of the greatest women players ever, despite her shortened career, Martina Navratilova, in a 2013 interview noted that if Seles had not been stabbed, "We'd be talking about Monica with the most Grand Slam titles [ahead of] Margaret Court or Steffi Graf."

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-23 00:06:27

1181) Kathryn D. Sullivan

Summary

Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan (born October 3, 1951) is an American geologist and oceanographer, and a former NASA astronaut and US Navy officer. She was a crew member on three Space Shuttle missions.

A graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz, in the United States, and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada—where she earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in geology in 1978—Sullivan was selected as one of the six women among the 35 astronaut candidate in NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first group to include women. During her training, she became the first woman to be certified to wear a United States Air Force pressure suit, and on July 1, 1979, she set an unofficial sustained American aviation altitude record for women. During her first mission, STS-41-G, Sullivan performed the first extra-vehicular activity (EVA) by an American woman. On her second, STS-31, she helped deploy the Hubble Space Telescope. On the third, STS-45, she served as Payload Commander on the first Spacelab mission dedicated to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth.

Sullivan was Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) after being confirmed by the US Senate on March 6, 2014. Her tenure ended on January 20, 2017, after which she was designated as the 2017 Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, and also served as a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. On June 7, 2020, Sullivan became the first woman to dive into the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Earth's oceans. In September 2021, President Joe Biden appointed her to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Details

Kathryn Sullivan, in full Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan, (born October 3, 1951, Paterson, New Jersey, U.S.), is an American oceanographer and astronaut, the first American woman to walk in space (1984).

Sullivan received a bachelor’s degree in Earth sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1973 and a doctorate in geology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1978. While at Dalhousie she participated in several oceanographic expeditions that studied the floors of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

In 1978 Sullivan was selected as an astronaut by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Her first spaceflight was aboard the space shuttle Challenger on the STS-41G mission (October 5–13, 1984). Sullivan and mission specialist David Leetsma performed a 3.5-hour space walk in which they operated a system designed to show that satellites could be refueled in orbit.

Sullivan flew on two more spaceflights. On STS-31 (April 24–29, 1990), the space shuttle Discovery deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. On STS-45 (March 24–April 2, 1992), Sullivan was the payload commander of the Atmospheric Laboratory for Applications and Science, a laboratory on a pallet housed in the space shuttle Atlantis’s cargo bay that contained 12 experiments studying Earth’s atmosphere.

Sullivan left NASA in 1993 and became chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In 1996 she was named president and chief executive officer of the Center of Science and Industry, a science museum in Columbus, Ohio. In 2006 Sullivan became the director of the Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy at The Ohio State University in Columbus. In 2011 Pres. Barack Obama appointed her assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction and deputy administrator of NOAA; she was confirmed by the Senate later that year. In 2013 she became acting administrator of NOAA and acting under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere. The following year she received Senate confirmation, and she served until 2017. She wrote a book, Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut’s Story of Invention (2019) about her experiences deploying the Hubble Space Telescope.

More Information

Kathryn Sullivan is a distinguished scientist, renowned astronaut and intrepid explorer. Her expertise spans the frontiers of space and sea. An accomplished oceanographer, she was appointed NOAA’s Chief Scientist in 1993, where she oversaw a portfolio that included fisheries biology, climate change, satellite instrumentation and marine biodiversity. She was one of the first six women selected to join the NASA astronaut corps in 1978 and holds the distinction of being the first American woman to walk in space. Kathryn flew on three shuttle missions during her 15-year tenure, including the mission that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope. She was confirmed by the Senate as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator in 2014. Kathryn has also held the positions of Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction and Deputy Administrator, and also performed the duties of NOAA's Chief Scientist, a vacant position. As Assistant Secretary, she played a central role in directing Administration and NOAA priority work in the areas of weather and water services, climate science and services, integrated mapping services and Earth-observing capabilities. She also provided agency-wide direction with regard to satellites, space weather, water, and ocean observations and forecasts to best serve American communities and businesses. She is the United States Co-chair of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), an intergovernmental body that is building a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to provide environmental intelligence relevant to societal needs. Kathryn will travel as a Global Perspectives Guest Speaker.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-25 00:11:17

1182) Edwin Lutyens

Summary

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials and public buildings. In his biography, the writer Christopher Hussey wrote, "In his lifetime (Lutyens) was widely held to be our greatest architect since Wren if not, as many maintained, his superior". The architectural historian Gavin Stamp described him as "surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth (or of any other) century".

Lutyens played an instrumental role in designing and building New Delhi, which would later on serve as the seat of the Government of India. In recognition of his contribution, New Delhi is also known as "Lutyens' Delhi". In collaboration with Sir Herbert Baker, he was also the main architect of several monuments in New Delhi such as the India Gate; he also designed Viceroy's House, which is now known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Many of his works were inspired by Indian architecture. He was elected Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1933.

Details

Sir Edwin Lutyens, in full Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, (born March 29, 1869, London, England—died January 1, 1944, London), was an English architect noted for his versatility and range of invention along traditional lines. He is known especially for his planning of New Delhi and his design of the Viceroy’s House there.

After studying at the Royal College of Art, London, he was articled in 1887 to a firm of architects but soon left to set up in practice on his own. In his early works (1888–95) he assimilated the traditional forms of local Surrey buildings. Lutyens’ style changed when he met the landscape gardener Gertrude Jekyll, who taught him the “simplicity of intention and directness of purpose” she had learned from John Ruskin. At Munstead Wood, Godalming, Surrey (1896), Lutyens first showed his personal qualities as a designer. This house, balancing the sweep of the roof with high buttressed chimneys and offsetting small doorways with long strips of windows, made his reputation. A brilliant series of country houses followed in which Lutyens adapted varied styles of the past to the demands of contemporary domestic architecture.

About 1910 Lutyens’ interest shifted to larger, civil projects, and in 1912 he was selected to advise on the planning of the new Indian capital at Delhi. His plan, with a central mall and diagonal avenues, may have owed something to Pierre-Charles L’Enfant’s plan for Washington, D.C., and to Christopher Wren’s plan for London after the Great Fire, but the total result was quite different: a garden-city pattern, based on a series of hexagons separated by broad avenues with double lines of trees. In his single most important building, the Viceroy’s House (1913–30), he combined aspects of classical architecture with features of Indian decoration. Lutyens was knighted in 1918.

After World War I Lutyens became architect to the Imperial War Graves Commission, for which he designed the Cenotaph, London (1919–20); the Great War Stone (1919); and military cemeteries in France. His vast project for the Roman Catholic cathedral at Liverpool was incomplete at his death.

Additional Information

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (29 March 1869 - 1 January 1944) was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era.

He has been referred to as "the greatest British architect" and is known best for having an instrumental role in designing and building a section of the metropolis of Delhi, known as New Delhi, which would later on serve as the seat of the Government of India. In recognition of his contribution, New Delhi is also known as "Lutyens' Delhi". In collaboration with Sir Herbert Baker, he was also the main architect of several monuments in New Delhi such as the India Gate; he also designed the Viceroy's House now known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Initially, his designs were all Arts and Crafts style, a good example being Overstrand Hall, Norfolk and Le Bois des Moutiers (1898) in France, but during the early 1900s his work became more classical in style. His commissions were of a varied nature from private houses to two churches for the new Hampstead Garden Suburb in London to Julius Drewe's Castle Drogo near Drewsteignton in Devon. He also designed a Columbarium for the Hannen family in Wargrave. Here he added elements of local architectural styles to his classicism, and based his urbanization scheme on Mughal water gardens. He also designed the Hyderabad House for the last Nizam of Hyderabad, as his Delhi palace.

Lutyens' also designed a chalk building, Marsh Court, in Hampshire, England. Built between 1901 and 1905, it is the last of his Tudor designs and was based on a variant of ancient rammed earth building techniques. In 1903 the main school building of Amesbury Prep School in Hindhead, Surrey, was designed and built as a private residence. It is now a Grade 2* listed building

Before the end of World War I, he was appointed one of three principal architects for the Imperial War Graves Commission and was involved with the creation of many monuments to commemorate the dead. Larger cemeteries have a Stone of Remembrance, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. The best known of these monuments are the Cenotaph in Whitehall, Westminster, and the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, Thiepval. The Cenotaph was originally commissioned by David Lloyd George as a temporary structure to be the centrepiece of the Allied Victory Parade in 1919. Lloyd George proposed a catafalque, a low empty platform, but it was Lutyens' idea for the taller monument. The design took less than six hours to complete. Many local war memorials (such as the one at All Saints', Northampton), Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Ontario, Hamilton, Ontario, Victoria, British Columbia, and Vancouver, British Columbia are Lutyens designs-based on the Cenotaph. He also designed the War Memorial Gardens in Dublin, which were restored in the 1990s. Other works include the Tower Hill memorial, and (similar to his later India Gate design) a memorial in Victoria Park in Leicester. Lutyens also refurbished Lindisfarne Castle for its wealthy owner.

He was knighted in 1918 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy in 1921. In 1924, he was appointed a member of the newly created Royal Fine Art Commission, a position he held until his death.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-27 00:08:15

1183) Billie Jean King

Summary

Billie Jean King (née Moffitt; born November 22, 1943) is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. King won 39 major titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles. King was a member of the victorious United States team in seven Federation Cups and nine Wightman Cups. For three years, she was the U.S. captain in the Federation Cup.

King is an advocate of gender equality and has long been a pioneer for equality and social justice. In 1973, at age 29, she won the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match against the 55-year-old Bobby Riggs. King was also the founder of the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation. She was instrumental in persuading cigarette brand Virginia Slims to sponsor women's tennis in the 1970s and went on to serve on the board of their parent company Philip Morris in the 2000s.

Regarded by many as one of the greatest tennis players of all time, King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987. The Fed Cup Award of Excellence was bestowed on her in 2010. In 1972, she was the joint winner, with John Wooden, of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award and was one of the Time Persons of the Year in 1975. She has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year lifetime achievement award. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1990, and in 2006, the USTA National Tennis Center in New York City was renamed the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. In 2018, she won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, the Federation Cup was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup in her honor. In 2022, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour.

Details

Billie Jean King, née Billie Jean Moffitt, (born November 22, 1943, Long Beach, California, U.S.), is an American tennis player whose influence and playing style elevated the status of women’s professional tennis beginning in the late 1960s. In her career she won 39 major titles, competing in both singles and doubles.

King was athletically inclined from an early age. She first attracted international attention in 1961 by winning the Wimbledon doubles championship with Karen Hantz; theirs was the youngest team to win. She went on to capture a record 20 Wimbledon titles (singles 1966–68, 1972–73, and 1975; women’s doubles 1961–62, 1965, 1967–68, 1970–73, and 1979; mixed doubles 1967, 1971, and 1973–74), in addition to U.S. singles (1967, 1971–72, and 1974), French singles (1972), and the Australian title (1968); her Wimbledon record was tied by Martina Navratilova in 2003. She was perhaps one of the greatest doubles players in the history of tennis, winning 27 major titles. With her victories in 1967, she was the first woman since 1938 to sweep the U.S. and British singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles in a single year.

King turned professional after 1968 and became the first woman athlete to win more than $100,000 in one season (1971). In 1973 she beat the aging Bobby Riggs in a much-publicized “Battle of the Sexes” match. The match set a record for the largest tennis audience and the largest purse awarded up to that time. She pushed relentlessly for the rights of women players, helped to form a separate women’s tour, and obtained financial backing from commercial sponsors. She was one of the founders and the first president (1974) of the Women’s Tennis Association.

King and her husband, Larry King (married 1965–87), were part of a group that founded World TeamTennis (WTT) in 1974. King served as the player-coach of the Philadelphia Freedoms, thus becoming one of the first women to coach professional male athletes. The WTT folded after 1978 because of financial losses, but King revived the competition in 1981.

King retired from competitive tennis in 1984 and the same year became the first woman commissioner in professional sports in her position with the World TeamTennis League. She was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1980, the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987, and the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990. King remained active in tennis and since the mid-1990s served as coach for several Olympic and Federation Cup teams; in 2020 the Federation Cup was renamed the Billie Jean King Cup. The United States Tennis Association honoured King in August 2006, when it renamed the National Tennis Center, home of the U.S. Open, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. In 2009 King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She published the autobiographies Billie Jean (1974; with Kim Chapin), The Autobiography of Billie Jean King (1982; with Frank Deford), and All In (2021; with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers). Her other books included We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women’s Tennis (1988; with Cynthia Starr) and Pressure Is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes (2008; with Christine Brennan).

Jai Ganesh · 2022-11-29 00:18:03

1184) Lindsay Davenport

Summary

Lindsay Ann Davenport Leach (born June 8, 1976) is an American former professional tennis player. Davenport was ranked singles world No. 1 for a total of 98 weeks, and was the year-end singles world No. 1 four times (1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005). She also held the doubles world No. 1 ranking for 32 weeks.

Noted for her powerful and consistent groundstrokes, Davenport won a total of 55 WTA Tour singles titles, including three major titles (one each at the Australian Open, the Wimbledon Championships and the US Open), the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and the Tour Finals. She also won 38 WTA Tour doubles titles, including three major titles (the French Open partnering Mary Joe Fernández, Wimbledon partnering Corina Morariu, and the US Open partnering Jana Novotná), and three Tour Finals (partnering Fernández, Novotná, and Natasha Zvereva).

Davenport amassed career-earnings of $22,166,338; currently eighth in the all-time rankings among female tennis players and formerly first, prior to being surpassed by Serena Williams in January 2009.

Davenport was coached for most of her career by Robert Van't Hof. In 2005, TENNIS Magazine ranked her as the 29th-greatest player (male or female) of the preceding 40 years. Davenport was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2014.

Details

For a player who was ranked No. 1 in the world for 98 weeks and a year-end No. 1 four times in 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2005, Lindsay Ann Davenport may be the most unassuming and unabashed champion among the enshrinees in Newport. Since 1975, the modest Davenport is one of only five female players who have ended the year ranked No. 1 in the world at least four times, joining an illustrious list featuring Chris Evert, Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, and Serena Williams.

As President Theodore Roosevelt famously said in describing his foreign policy, “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Words apropos for soft spoken, yet hard-hitting and big-serving Davenport who won three major singles titles (was a finalist in four others) and three major doubles championships (was a finalist in 10 others). In a career that spanned 17 years, from 1993 to 2010, Davenport won the 1996 Olympic Gold Medal and earned 55 singles and 38 doubles championships. Her 55 singles titles are tied with Virginia Wade for seventh best in the Open era. On February 22, 2006, she became just the eighth female player in Women’s Tennis Association history to win 700 matches, doing so by defeating Elena Likhovtseva in the second round of the Dubai Tournament, 6-0, 6-0. She finished her career 753-194 in singles and 387-116 in doubles.

At her induction ceremony, Chris Evert described the 6-foot-3 Davenport’s game as being “so loud, so strong, and aggressive.”

Davenport was a power baseliner. She built her game on a crushing forehand, deep and hard-to-handle. Her two-handed backhand was compact and clean, an often overlooked weapon – she could hit uncontested winners from that side as competently as her forehand. Davenport’s court placement was superb; shots hit into the corner were usually outright winners or defensive returns that she would follow to net and emphatically put away. Her height helped enhance a powerful flat serve that she placed anywhere in the service box. “Hitting the ball was always something that came very natural to me,” Davenport said in her induction acceptance speech on July 14, 2014. “It happened at a young age … It took me a very long time to put that together, probably 20 years after I first started playing. But that’s what made it so fun, was the sound, what I could do with the shots, see how hard I could hit them.”

She hit hard, played hard and her facial expression on court oozed focus and determination. When TENNIS Magazine released its list of the 40 greatest players of the tennis era, Davenport was ranked 29th. “She likes to hit the ball hard and into the corner,” explained Gabriela Sabatini, a player who played with pace and power, “very, very hard.”

Davenport, who turned professional after finishing high school in 1993, was named Rookie of the Year by both TENNIS Magazine and World Team Tennis. She won two major doubles titles before breaking through on the singles side. She captured the 1996 French Open alongside Mary Joe Fernández over Gigi Fernández and Natasha Zvereva, 6-2, 6-1. She provided American tennis fans with a glimpse of the future when in 1997 she teamed with Czech Jana Novotná to take the US Open over Fernández and Zvereva, 6-3, 6-4. She earned a third straight-sets major championship in 1999 at Wimbledon, teaming with fellow American Corina Morariu in a 6-4, 6-4 victory over South African Mariaan de Swardt and Ukraine star Elena Tatarkova. Six of Davenport’s 10 doubles finals appearances came at the Australian Open.

Davenport’s singles success came in a tight three-year span, when she won the 1998 US Open, the 1999 Wimbledon Ladies Singles Championship, and the 2000 Australian Open – all impressively in straight sets. As the No. 2 seed, she defeated No. 1 seed Martina Hingis at the US Open (6-3, 7-5) and again at the Australian Open (6-1, 7-5), where both the seeding and outcome was the same. The 1999 Wimbledon title over Steffi Graf was perhaps her most impressive championship. Davenport didn’t lose a set throughout the fortnight and registered a tight 6-4, 7-5 victory. It was the last major the incomparable Graf would ever play. Davenport would play in four subsequent major finals – two Wimbledon, one US, and one Australian – and in each case was thwarted by a Williams sister. Venus defeated her at the 2000 (6-3, 7-6) and 2005 (6-4, 6-7, 7-9) Wimbledon finals, and at the 2000 US Open (6-4, 7-5). Serena was a 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 winner at the 2005 Australian Open.

Davenport won the Gold Medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, defeating Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario, 7-6, 6-2. She played on the U.S. Fed Cup team for ten years (1993-2000, 2002, 2005, 2008), leading the Americans to titles in 1996, 1999, and 2000. Davenport compiled a 26-3 record in singles and a 7-0 mark in doubles.

At her 2014 induction ceremony in Newport, fellow classmate Jane Brown Grimes said, “She has meant a lot to women’s tennis. I consider her the quintessential power tennis for women’s tennis. She led the pack in changing the game … Also for U.S. tennis she was the American girl, the girl next door and always very humble. For me, she has been an absolute paragon and I hope there’s another Lindsay Davenport out there coming along because she’s done a tremendous amount for American tennis and women’s tennis.”

Davenport has extended her career in tennis post-retirement, working as a coach and currently as a broadcaster for Tennis Channel.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-12-01 00:13:32

1185) Ben Kingsley

Summary

Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning five decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the British film industry. In 2010, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013, he received the Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment.

Born to an English mother and an Indian Gujarati father with roots in Jamnagar, Kingsley began his career in theatre, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and spending the next 15 years appearing mainly on stage. His starring roles included productions of As You Like It (his West End debut for the company at the Aldwych Theatre in 1967), Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream (including Peter Brook's 1970 RSC production of the play), Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In film, Kingsley is known for his starring role as Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), for which he subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Actor and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also appeared as Itzhak Stern in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), receiving a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Subsequent roles have included Twelfth Night (1996), House of Sand and Fog (2003), Thunderbirds (2004), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hugo (2011), The Dictator (2012), and Ender's Game (2013). Kingsley played the character of Trevor Slattery in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in Iron Man 3 (2013), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and the upcoming Disney+ series Wonder Man. Kingsley also voiced the antagonistic Archibald Snatcher in The Boxtrolls (2014), and Bagheera in the live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book (2016).

Details

Ben Kingsley, original name Krishna Bhanji, (born December 31, 1943, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England), is a British actor recognized for playing a wide range of roles, including that of the title character in Gandhi (1982), for which he won an Academy Award for best actor.

Kingsley, of English and Indian descent, first began acting in amateur theatrical productions in Manchester, England. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and debuted on Broadway with the company in 1971. In addition, he acted extensively on television, beginning in 1966. During the remainder of the 1970s, Kingsley acted in plays, most notably Hamlet. Although he made his film debut in 1973 in Fear Is the Key, Kingsley did not return to cinema until he was cast as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in the early 1980s. To prepare for the role of the legendary Indian leader, he did extensive research, including adopting Gandhi’s habits of practicing yoga and eating a vegetarian diet. Critics noted his strong resemblance to Gandhi in the film, and the performance remains one of Kingsley’s most acclaimed characterizations.

Kingsley followed his role in Gandhi with such films as Betrayal (1983), Turtle Diary (1985), and Pascali’s Island (1988). He was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as Meyer Lansky in the Las Vegas crime drama Bugsy (1991). In the 1990s he also played a child’s chess coach in Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), a Jewish accountant in World War II-era Poland in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993), and a man taken captive by his neighbour in Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden (1994). In 1996 he starred as the jester Feste in a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Kingsley continued to embrace diverse roles into the early 21st century. For his scene-stealing performance in Sexy Beast (2000), in which he played an acerbic over-the-top gangster, he earned a third Academy Award nomination. Kingsley garnered another Oscar nomination for his role as an Iranian immigrant being harassed by the former owner of his new home in House of Sand and Fog (2003). Convincing performances followed in the television movie Mrs. Harris (2005) and in the films Oliver Twist (2005), You Kill Me (2007), and Transsiberian (2008). He subsequently took supporting roles in the Martin Scorsese films Shutter Island (2010) and Hugo (2011), in the latter portraying French film pioneer Georges Méliès.

Kingsley later appeared in the satire The Dictator (2012), which starred Sacha Baron Cohen; as the sinister archenemy of the superhero Iron Man in Iron Man 3 (2013); and as a half-Maori war hero in the 2013 adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi novel Ender’s Game. He played the colleague of a war photographer who has lost a friend in War Story (2014) and Hungarian leader Miklós Horthy in the World War II drama Walking with the Enemy (2013). In 2014 Kingsley voiced a scrofulous cross-dressing pest exterminator in the animated adventure The Boxtrolls and joined the ensemble of Ridley Scott’s biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings as the Jewish elder Nun. In director Robert Zemeckis’s The Walk (2015), he played the mentor of high-wire artist Philippe Petit, who in 1974 traversed the space between the towers of the World Trade Center on a cable.

Kingsley then voiced a computer-animated version of the panther Bagheera in the 2016 live-action adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. In 2018 he starred in Backstabbing for Beginners, a fictional account of the corruption scandal that plagued the oil-for-food program run by the United Nations, and Operation Finale, portraying Adolf Eichmann, a former Nazi officer, as he is tracked and captured in Argentina by a team of secret agents determined to bring him to justice. In 2019 Kingsley played a member of Mossad in both The Red Sea Diving Resort and Spider in the Web.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-12-03 00:04:02

1186) Ingrid Bergman

Summary

Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays. With a career spanning five decades, she is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history.

According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, upon her arrival in the U.S. Bergman quickly became "the ideal of American womanhood" and a contender for Hollywood's greatest leading actress. David O. Selznick once called her "the most completely conscientious actress" he had ever worked with. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards (only Katharine Hepburn has four).

Born in Stockholm to a Swedish father and a German mother, Bergman began her acting career in Swedish and German films. Her introduction to the U.S. audience came in the English-language remake of Intermezzo (1939). Known for her naturally luminous beauty, she starred in Casablanca (1942) as Ilsa Lund, her most famous role, opposite Humphrey Bogart. Bergman's notable performances in the 1940s include the dramas For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and Joan of Arc (1948), all of which earned her nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she won for Gaslight. She made three films with Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), with Gregory Peck, Notorious (1946), opposite Cary Grant and Under Capricorn (1949), alongside Joseph Cotten.

In 1950, she starred in Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli, released after the revelation she was having an affair with Rossellini; that and her pregnancy prior to their marriage created a scandal in the U.S. that prompted her to remain in Europe for several years. During this time she starred in Rossellini's Europa '51 and Journey to Italy (1954), now critically acclaimed, the former of which won her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. She had a successful return to working for a Hollywood studio in Anastasia (1956), winning her second Academy Award for Best Actress. Soon after, she co-starred with Grant in the romance Indiscreet (1958). In 1969, she starred in the acclaimed and highly successful film Cactus Flower. In later years, Bergman won her third Academy Award, this one for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). In 1978, she starred in Ingmar Bergman's (no relation) Swedish Autumn Sonata receiving her sixth Best Actress nomination. Bergman spoke five languages – Swedish, English, German, Italian and French – and acted in each.

In her final role, she portrayed the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the television miniseries A Woman Called Golda (1982) for which she posthumously won her second Emmy Award for Best Actress. In 1974, Bergman discovered she was suffering from breast cancer but continued to work until shortly before her death on her sixty-seventh birthday.

Details

Ingrid Bergman, (born August 29, 1915, Stockholm, Sweden—died August 29, 1982, London, England), was a Swedish actress whose natural charm, freshness, intelligence, and vitality made her the image of sincerity and idealized womanhood. One of cinema’s biggest stars, she appeared in such classics as Casablanca (1942) and Notorious (1946).

Early life

Bergman was only two years old when her mother died, and about a decade later her father also passed away. Although she was shy, she long dreamed of becoming an actress, and she worked assiduously for admission to the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm, where she studied for a year. Her first credited film appearance was in Munkbrogreven (1935; The Count of the Old Monk’s Bridge), and it was followed by challenging roles in such Swedish films as the original Intermezzo (1936) and En kvinnas ansikte (1938; A Woman’s Face). In 1939 she starred in the Hollywood version of Intermezzo, which was a box-office hit.

Stardom: Casablanca, Gaslight, and Notorious

Several films later Bergman became a star with Casablanca (1942), one of cinema’s most iconic films. In this romantic drama, Bergman played Ilsa Lund, a woman torn between two men (played by Humphrey Bogart and Paul Henreid) during World War II. Now highly sought after, Bergman appeared in a series of critical and commercial successes that included For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), which was based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel, and the film noir Gaslight (1944). In the latter movie she starred as a woman whose husband (Charles Boyer) attempts to drive her mad, and her performance earned her an Academy Award for best actress.

Bergman received another Oscar nod for her portrayal of a nun in The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945). During this time she also earned acclaim for two thrillers directed by Alfred Hitchcock: Spellbound (1945), in which she played a psychiatrist attempting to help an amnesiac patient (Gregory Peck), and Notorious (1946), an espionage drama that costarred Cary Grant. Bergman continued to show her impressive range by playing the titular character in Joan of Arc (1948), for which she received her fourth Academy Award nomination.

Scandal and later films

During the filming of Stromboli (1950), Bergman began a love affair with the Italian director Roberto Rossellini, and they had a son before she obtained a divorce from her first husband. A scandal ensued—a U.S. senator notably called her “a horrible example of womanhood and a powerful influence for evil”—and Bergman was banned in Hollywood. She returned to Europe, where she appeared in Italian and French films such as Europa ’51 (1952; The Greatest Love) and Viaggio in Italia (1954; Journey to Italy). During this time she married (1950–57) Rossellini, and the couple had two more children, including Isabella Rossellini, who became a noted model and actress.

Bergman made a triumphant Hollywood comeback in Anastasia (1956), for which she won her second Academy Award. She continued to appear in Hollywood productions, including The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958), as well as in European films. She won her third Oscar, for best supporting actress, for her role in the highly successful film Murder on the Orient Express (1974). However, most agree that her greatest performance in her later years was as a concert pianist in the Swedish film Höstsonaten (1978; Autumn Sonata), directed by Ingmar Bergman; she received her seventh and final Academy Award nomination for the drama. Her last role was that of Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, in the television play A Woman Called Golda (1981). For this role she was posthumously awarded an Emmy Award in 1982.

In addition to her film work, Bergman also acted on the stage. In 1940 she made her Broadway debut in Liliom. She later appeared in such critically acclaimed plays as Hedda Gabler (Paris, 1962), A Month in the Country (Great Britain, 1965), and Captain Brassbound’s Conversion (London, 1971). She won a Tony Award for her performance in Joan of Lorraine (1946–47), and her last Broadway appearance was in The Constant Wife (1975). She also starred in the television plays The Turn of the Screw (1959) and Hedda Gabler (1963).

My Story (1980) is her autobiography with alternating sections by Alan Burgess.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-12-05 00:23:36

1187) Naomi Osaka

Summary

Naomi Osaka (Ōsaka Naomi, born October 16, 1997) is a Japanese professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles. Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, with two Australian Open and two US Open titles. Her seven titles on the WTA Tour also include two at the Premier Mandatory level. At the 2018 US Open and the 2019 Australian Open, Osaka won her first two major titles in back-to-back tournaments. She was the first woman to win successive major singles titles since Serena Williams in 2015, and the first to win her first two in successive majors since Jennifer Capriati in 2001.

Born in Japan to a Haitian-American father and a Japanese mother, Osaka has lived and trained in the United States since age three. She came to prominence at age 16 when she defeated former US Open champion Samantha Stosur in her WTA Tour debut at the 2014 Stanford Classic. Two years later, she reached her first WTA final at the 2016 Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo to enter the top 50 of the WTA rankings. Osaka made her breakthrough into the upper echelon of women's tennis in 2018 when she won her first WTA title at the Indian Wells Open. Later in the year, she defeated 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams in the final of the US Open to become the first Japanese player to win a major singles title. In mid-2021, suffering from depression and other issues, Osaka retired from the French Open, dropped out of Wimbledon, and lost early at the US Open. She closed down the rest of her tennis season to focus on family and health. From 2018 to 2021, Osaka won a major singles title in four consecutive years, with her streak ending in 2022.

Osaka is one of the world's most marketable athletes, having been ranked eighth among all athletes in endorsement income in 2020. She was also the highest-earning female athlete of all time by annual income that year. Osaka has gained significant recognition as an activist, having showcased support for the Black Lives Matter movement in conjunction with her matches. She was named one of the 2020 Sports Illustrated Sportspersons of the Year for her activism largely as part of her US Open championship run, and was also included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Moreover, she was the 2021 Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. On the court, Osaka has an aggressive playing style with a powerful serve that can reach 201 kilometers per hour (125 mph).

Details

Naomi Osaka (born October 16, 1997) is a Japanese professional tennis player. She has been ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and is the first Asian player to hold the top ranking in singles. Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, with two Australian Open and two US Open titles. Her seven titles on the WTA Tour also include two at the Premier Mandatory level. At the 2018 US Open and the 2019 Australian Open, Osaka won her first two major titles in back-to-back tournaments. She was the first woman to win successive major singles titles since Serena Williams in 2015, and the first to win her first two in successive majors since Jennifer Capriati in 2001.

Born in Japan to a Haitian-American father and a Japanese mother, Osaka has lived and trained in the United States since age three. She came to prominence at age 16 when she defeated former US Open champion Samantha Stosur in her WTA Tour debut at the 2014 Stanford Classic. Two years later, she reached her first WTA final at the 2016 Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo to enter the top 50 of the WTA rankings. Osaka made her breakthrough into the upper echelon of women's tennis in 2018 when she won her first WTA title at the Indian Wells Open. Later in the year, she defeated 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams in the final of the US Open to become the first Japanese player to win a major singles title. In mid-2021, suffering from depression and other issues, Osaka retired from the French Open, dropped out of Wimbledon, and lost early at the US Open. She closed down the rest of her tennis season to focus on family and health. From 2018 to 2021, Osaka won a major singles title in four consecutive years, with her streak ending in 2022.

In March 2018 Osaka captured her first WTA Tour title, winning the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California. Some six months later she faced Serena Williams—one of her childhood idols—in the championship match of the U.S. Open and bested her in straight sets. Osaka triumphed again at the 2019 Australian Open, where she notched a three-set victory over Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic in the finals. With that win Osaka became the first woman to claim consecutive Grand Slam singles titles since Williams accomplished the feat in 2015. On January 28, 2019, Osaka officially assumed the number one world ranking. She held the top spot for 21 weeks, until overtaken by Australian Ashleigh Barty in June. Later in the year Osaka again sat atop the world rankings, for two weeks beginning in mid-August.

Osaka’s outspokenness on issues of social justice also attracted widespread attention. In August 2020 she temporarily withdrew from the Western & Southern Open tennis tournament in New York as a means of showing solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests that were occurring in cities across the United States that summer. At the U.S. Open the following month, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she wore a series of face masks featuring the names of African Americans who had died at the hands of police or in alleged racially motivated attacks carried out by others. She stated that the face masks were part of her effort “to make people start talking.” Osaka triumphed at the tournament, winning the U.S. Open title for a second time. In recognition of her tennis success and activism, the Associated Press selected Osaka as the Female Athlete of the Year for 2020.

Osaka added to her collection of Grand Slam trophies in February 2021 when she secured a second Australian Open title. She was the 16th woman of the open era (since 1968) to have won four Grand Slam singles championships. The following May, citing mental health concerns, she withdrew from the French Open after having been fined by the organizers for skipping press conferences during the tournament. She later revealed that she had suffered bouts of depression since 2018 and that she planned to take a break from competition. Osaka opted not to play at Wimbledon in 2021, but later that year she competed at the U.S. Open, where she was upset in the third round. She subsequently went on a four-month hiatus, returning to competition in early 2022. At that year’s Australian Open, Osaka experienced another loss in the third round, and she lost in the first round of that year’s U.S. Open.

On several occasions Osaka represented Japan in international competitions. She played on the Japanese Fed Cup team in 2017, 2018, and 2020. In October 2019 Osaka, who held dual citizenship with Japan and the United States, announced that she would relinquish her U.S. citizenship and compete for Japan in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Games opened in July 2021, and Osaka was given the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron. She competed in the Olympic tennis tournament but lost in the third round.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-12-07 00:10:14

1188) Chris Evert

Summary

Christine Marie Evert (born December 21, 1954), known as Chris Evert Lloyd from 1979 to 1987, is an American former world No. 1 tennis player. Evert won 18 major singles titles, including a record seven French Open titles and a joint-record six US Open titles (tied with Serena Williams). She was ranked world No. 1 for 260 weeks, and was the year-end world No. 1 singles player seven times (1974–78, 1980, 1981). Alongside Martina Navratilova, her greatest rival, Evert dominated women's tennis in the 1970s and 1980s.

Evert reached 34 major singles finals, the most in history. In singles, Evert reached the semifinals or better in 52 of the 56 majors she played, including at 34 consecutive majors entered from the 1971 US Open through the 1983 French Open. She never lost in the first or second round of a major, and lost in the third round only twice. She holds the record of most consecutive years (13) of winning at least one major title. Evert's career winning percentage in singles matches of 89.97% (1309–146) is the second highest in the Open Era, for men or women. On clay courts, her career winning percentage in singles matches of 94.55% (382–22) remains a WTA Tour record. She also won three major doubles titles.

Evert served as president of the Women's Tennis Association for eleven years, 1975–76 and 1983–91. She was awarded the Philippe Chatrier award and inducted into the Hall of Fame. In later life, Evert was a coach and is now an analyst for ESPN, and has a line of tennis and active apparel.

Details

Chris Evert, in full Christine Marie Evert, also called (1979–87) Chris Evert Lloyd, (born Dec. 21, 1954, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., U.S.), is an outstanding American tennis player who dominated the sport in the mid- and late 1970s and remained a major competitor into the late 1980s. She was noted for her consistency, precision, poise, and grace and for popularizing the two-handed backhand stroke.

Evert, the daughter of a noted tennis player, early began taking tennis lessons from her father. Her style evolved rapidly to feature a powerful two-handed backhand and a degree of concentration that often unnerved opponents. At age 15 she beat top-ranked Margaret Smith Court, and in 1971 she became the youngest player to reach the semifinals of the U.S. championship. The following year she advanced to the semifinal round of her first Wimbledon tournament and won the Virginia Slims tournament.

In December 1972 Evert turned professional; she won her first professional tournament in March 1973 and graduated from high school soon after. Victories in the 1974 French and Italian championships and at Wimbledon highlighted a remarkable 56-match winning streak. Her relationship with (and later engagement to) tennis star Jimmy Connors was followed closely by the media, especially after both players won the singles championships at Wimbledon in 1974, but the couple later called off their engagement. She retained her Italian and French titles in 1975, and that year she also won the first of four consecutive U.S. Open titles (1975–78), becoming the first woman since Helen Hull Jacobs to do so. In 1976 she won her second Wimbledon title. Despite having had occasional troubles on grass courts, she compiled one of the most spectacular records in tennis in clay-court competition; as of April 1978 she was undefeated on clay in 118 matches in 24 tournaments.

Following her marriage to tennis player John Lloyd in 1979, she adopted the name Evert Lloyd (the couple divorced in 1987). She added to her success with victories at the U.S. Open (1980 and 1982), Wimbledon (1981), the Virginia Slims (1987), the French Open (1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, and 1986), and the Australian Open (1982 and 1984).

She retired from professional tennis in 1989 and became a television commentator, a special adviser to the United States National Tennis Team, and president of the Women’s Tennis Association (1982–91). She also founded Chris Evert Charities, which focuses primarily on drug and family problems. With her family she cofounded (1996) the Evert Tennis Academy in Boca Raton, Fla. In 2008 Evert married Australian golfer Greg Norman (they divorced the following year).

The recipient of numerous honours, Evert was voted the Associated Press’s Female Athlete of the Year on four occasions, and in 1985 the Women’s Sports Foundation named her the greatest woman athlete in the past 25 years. She was unanimously inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995.

Additional Information

Christine Marie Evert was known as America’s tennis sweetheart. But to those who had to face her, “human backboard” might have been a more apt description. Evert’s muscle-memory was engrained in her at age 5, when she began hitting tennis balls under the watchful eye of her coach and father Jimmy Evert. The sound of balls coming off her racquet in rhythmic measure could be substituted for a metronome that musicians use to keep tempo. Her two-handed backhand was flawless and emulated by players around the world — young and old — who wanted to hit the ball as cleanly, smoothly and as precisely as Evert.

Evert had grace and beauty. and she was cool, calm, and collected with the steely focus of a heart surgeon. Evert’s concentration on court was intense, “She concentrates to the last point,” remarked Margaret Court. “It makes her a champion. Even when she is losing she concentrates and never gives up.”

Evert was stoic and commonly referred to as “The Ice Maiden”: between the lines, a quiet, deadpan champion; the only noise coming from her side of the court was the constant ping of balls being returned back again and again and again. Evert had inherent athletic gifts that blossomed quickly. She was a relentless and fierce competitor. Her focus and grit could not be disrupted under any circumstance. She was poised, patient, and particular about her game. It also earned her the nickname “Little Miss Cool.” Regardless of gender, she will always be the model of excellence and her career is populated by record-setting accomplishments:

* Evert became the first player, male or female, to win 1,000 singles matches and compiled the second most career match wins (1,309), behind Martina Navratilova, who won 1,442.
* Evert won 18 major Championships, tied for fifth-best in women’s history.
* Evert won at least one major singles title a record 13 years in a row.
* Evert won the second-most singles titles in history (157), behind Navratilova’s 167, and was the first to top the 150-plus mark.
* Evert owns a .900 winning percentage (1,309-148), best in history, male or female.
* She was ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in the world from 1975 to 1986, and 260 weeks in total.
* Evert won a record seven French Open singles titles, only surpassed by Rafael Nadal in 2013.
* Evert won a record six US Open singles titles, since tied by Serena Williams in 2014.
* Evert won a then-record 55 consecutive matches achieved in 1974 (Navratilova broke the mark with 74 consecutive wins in 1984).
* Evert was the first female player to reach $1 million in career prize money in 1976 ($8,896,195 total).
* Evert was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year four times (1974, 1975, 1977, 1980).

The Evert household was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and soon Chris would become a household name and recognizable face to the entire world. Her father Jimmy, who taught tennis at the nearby Holiday Park, helped groom a mini tennis factory, Evert’s brother John and sisters Jeanne and Clare were all terrific players. Jeanne was a professional tennis player in the early 1970s and all four of Jimmy’s children won titles as junior players at the prestigious Orange Bowl Tournament in Miami.

Evert’s two-handed backhand was developed out of necessity more than desire. She was a slight youth not strong enough to hit a one-hander, so employed two hands, and before long it became the most impenetrable backhand in tennis. Evert was a 5-foot-6 slugging machine, not the biggest player on tour, but it hardly mattered when her groundstroke accuracy was the best in the game. They were hit deeply, effectively, and with pace. All of this attributed to preparation and underrated foot speed.

After winning the national 16-and-under tournament, she was invited to compete in an eight-player tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina. She advanced to the finals after defeating reigning major champion and world No. 1 ranked player Margaret Court, 7-6, 7-6. Playing Evert on clay courts would later become a complete exercise in futility. She would compile a 72-6 match record on the red clay at Roland Garros and rack up seven French Open titles (1974, 1975, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1986), an all-time record that stood for 27 years until Rafael Nadal won his eighth in 2013. Most impressively and remarkably, Evert reeled off a 125-match clay court winning streak that run from August 1973 to May 1979, encompassing 24 tournaments.

“I was hungry to win every point,” Evert said. “It was all about ‘what am I going to eat before my match, how much sleep am I going to get, who am I going to beat?’”

As a 16-year-old who attended St. Thomas Aquinas High School, Evert made her major tournament debut as an amateur at the 1971 US Open at Forest Hills and thumped German Edda Buding, 6-1, 6-0. Her next three matches all went three sets, with Evert coming back from behind each time, to defeat Mary-Ann Eisel, Françoise Dürr, and Lesley Hunt before eventual champion Billie Jean King put a halt on Evert’s run as the youngest semifinalist in US Open history, 6-3, 6-2.

That afternoon on the grass courts in New York set Evert’s career in motion. She remained an amateur until turning professional on her 18th birthday in 1972, signing a racquet deal with Wilson to commemorate the occasion. Evert then began her assault on the record books — winning 18 major singles titles (fifth best in history) and appearing in 16 additional finals. Before her 21st birthday, Evert had already won the US Open (1975, 1976), Wimbledon (1974, 1976), the French Open (1974, 1975), the Italian Championships (1974, 1975), and the arduous Virginia Slims Championship (1972, 1973, 1975). Evert tacked on three major titles in women’s doubles (1974 and 1975 French, 1976 Wimbledon), tied for 13th best in history with Lenglen. A record six crowns (since tied by Serena Williams) were won at the US Open (1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982); two were achieved at the Australian (1982, 1984). Prior to her arrival at Wimbledon in 1972, the British media dubbed her “The Ice Princess” and Evert would accommodate the description, with workmanlike precision in winning three titles (1974, 1976, 1981).

During her nearly two decades on tour as a professional, Evert was never ranked lower than No. 4 in the world and ended the year ranked No. 1 seven times (1974-1978, 1980, 1981). According to Lance Tingay and published in the ITF's annual Year of Tennis, as an amateur in 1971 and 1972, Evert had year-end world rankings of no. 10 and no. 3 respectively. She was never once beaten in the first or second round of a major tournament and was a semifinalist in 52 of the 56 majors she played. “She won’t carry anyone and she’ll never tank a match,” said the venerable Bud Collins. “She’s the ultimate professional.”

The 1974 and 1975 tour seasons saw Evert win 16 WTA championships each year, but 1974 was particularly impressive as Evert reeled off a 55-match winning streak (fifth best in history), won the 1974 French and Wimbledon titles, advanced to the Australian finals, and made the US Open semifinals. She compiled a stunning 103-7 record and won 16 of 24 tournaments she entered.

Evert’s career spanned the inaugural years of Open tennis and into the modern era, enabling her to compete against the “old” guard players like Virginia Wade, Evonne Goolagong, Rosie Casals, King, and Navratilova and the “young” hotshot breed of power hitters, like Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, and Gabriela Sabatini. Of those players who were ranked No. 10 in the world or higher, Evert was hardly ever on the losing side of all-time head-to-head competition. She went 40-6 against Wade, 26-12 against Goolagong, 19-7 versus King, and a close 37-43 against Navratilova. She held a 6-3 advantage over Sabatini, 2-1 versus Seles, and went 6-7 against Graf. There were 22 players ranked in the top ten that Evert never lost to in five or more matches and ten others that managed only one win when facing Evert five or more times.

The primary rival was Navratilova, who faced Evert in 14 major finals. Evert won four of those, 1982 Australian; 1975, 1985, 1986 French. Navratilova won 10 times, 1981, 1985 Australian; 1984 French; 1978, 1979, 1982, 1984, 1985 Wimbledon; 1983, 1984 US Open. Goolagong and Evert were essentially even in major finals, Goolagong losing to Evert at the US Open in 1975 and 1976 and Wimbledon in 1976, but earning victories at the Australian in 1974, and Wimbledon in 1980. Evert defeated Russian Olga Morozova to win the French and Wimbledon titles in 1974 and nipped Czech Hana Mandlikova to win the US Open in 1980 and Wimbledon in 1981.

In 1976 Evert told Sports Illustrated, “I’m not glamorous. I’m not beautiful. I don’t want to be on a plateau higher than anyone else. I don’t want the younger girls to be in awe of me. I talk to them about their matches, congratulate them on key victories. I ask them to practice and hit with me. Not many of the older players came over and asked me to practice when I first came up. I think that’s important.” In December of that year, she was named Sports Illustrated’s Sportswoman of the Year and depicted on the magazine cover (the first of three appearances).

Evert played for the United States in the Fed Cup competition nine years, winning eight titles (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1989).

Evert served as President of the Women’s Tennis Association twice (1975-1976, 1983-1991) and received the Flo Hyman Award on February 2, 1990 by President George H.W. Bush, who called her “the role model for our nation’s young women.” President Bush was also present at her induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1995.

Admiration and respect for Evert from fellow tour players ran deep. When Zina Garrison defeated her in the quarterfinals of her final US Open in 1989, 7-6, 6-2, she openly cried and apologized (for winning) at courtside. The two hugged as they walked off the court together, it difficult to determine who had advanced or lost.

The Queen of American tennis departed Louis Armstrong Stadium poised and dignified.

“I am so glad I came along when I did,” Evert said, “with Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Stan Smith as role models. And alongside me was Björn (Borg), Jimmy (Connors), and Martina. It was the tennis boom. It was personal, we were close to our fans, and we had enough money.”

Evert, who was named the fourth best player in the TENNIS Era by TENNIS Magazine, has operated a tennis academy in Boca Raton, has served as a contributor and publisher of TENNIS Magazine and has been an analyst on several television networks, joining ESPN in 2011.

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Jai Ganesh · 2022-12-09 00:03:57

1189) Sophia Loren

Summary

Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress. She was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest female stars of Classical Hollywood cinema. As of 2022, she is one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema and is the only remaining living person on the AFI's list of the 25 greatest female stars, positioned at number 21.

Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age sixteen in 1950. She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career. Her film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples. During the 1950s, she starred in films as an emancipated persona and was one of the best known feminine gender symbols of the time.

Loren's performance as Cesira in the film Two Women (1961) directed by Vittorio De Sica won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor to win an Oscar for a non-English-language performance. She holds the record for having earned seven David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963); Marriage Italian Style (1964, for which she was nominated for a second Oscar); Sunflower (1970); The Voyage (1974); A Special Day (1977) and The Life Ahead (2020). She has won five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, she received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.

At the start of the 1980s, Loren chose to make rarer film appearances. Since then, she has appeared in films such as Prêt-à-porter (1994), Grumpier Old Men (1995), Nine (2009), and The Life Ahead (2020).

Details

Sophia Loren, original name Sofia Villani Scicolone, (born September 20, 1934, Rome, Italy), is an Italian film actress who rose above her poverty-stricken origins in postwar Naples to become universally recognized as one of Italy’s most beautiful women and its most famous movie star.

Before working in the cinema, Sofia Scicolone changed her last name to Lazzaro for work in the fotoromanzi, popular pulp magazines that used still photographs to depict romantic stories. Her first film role was as an extra, one of many slave girls in the American production of Quo Vadis? (1951). Under the tutelage of producer Carlo Ponti (her future husband), Scicolone was transformed into Sophia Loren. Her career was launched in a series of low-budget comedies before she attracted critical and popular attention with Aida (1953), in which she lip-synched the singing of Renata Tebaldi in the title role.

Loren’s beauty often overshadowed her enormous talents as an actress, but her earthy charisma is evident even in such early works as Vittorio De Sica’s L’oro di Napoli (1954; The Gold of Naples). With Ponti’s help, Loren increased her international visibility by appearing in Hollywood films opposite such major stars as Cary Grant (Houseboat, 1968), Clark Gable (It Started in Naples, 1960), Frank Sinatra (The Pride and the Passion, 1957, also with Grant), Alan Ladd (Boy on a Dolphin, 1957), William Holden (The Key, 1958), and Paul Newman (Lady L, 1965). Such exposure was undoubtedly instrumental in helping her win an Academy Award for best actress in De Sica’s La ciociara (1960; Two Women), in which she delivered a powerful performance as the courageous mother of a teenage girl during World War II.

Two other De Sica films showcased her comic talents and paired her with another Italian film icon, Marcello Mastroianni: Ieri, oggi, domani (1963; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow), a film that earned an Oscar for best foreign film; and Matrimonio all’italiana (1964; Marriage, Italian Style). The best performance of her late career, again with Mastroianni, was for director Ettore Scola in Una giornata particolare (1977, A Special Day). Loren’s subsequent work included the television movie Courage (1986) and the feature films Prêt-à-Porter (1994), which was directed by Robert Altman, and the musical Nine (2009). In 2010 she starred in the TV movie La mia casa è piena di specchi (My House Is Full of Mirrors), which was based on the autobiography of her sister, Maria Scicolone. Loren next appeared in Voce umana (2014; Human Voice), a short film based on a play by Jean Cocteau; it was directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. He also helmed La vita davanti a sé (2020; The Life Ahead), in which Loren starred as a Holocaust survivor who takes in a young refugee from Senegal.

International recognition for Loren’s distinguished acting career included a lifetime achievement Oscar (1991) and a career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1998). She also made headlines in the 1990s for her strong defense of animal rights. In 2010 she received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for theatre/film.

Jai Ganesh · 2022-12-11 00:14:15

1190) Doris Day

Summary

Doris Day, original name Doris Von Kappelhoff, (born April 3, 1922, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.—died May 13, 2019, Carmel Valley, California), American singer and motion-picture actress whose performances in movie musicals of the 1950s and gender comedies of the early 1960s made her a leading Hollywood star.

While still a teenager, she changed her last name to Day when she began singing on radio. She worked as a vocalist in the bands of Barney Rapp and Bob Crosby before joining Les Brown’s band in 1940 and making several popular recordings, among them “Sentimental Journey.” Day went solo in 1947 and achieved great success as a recording artist. Her singing was distinguished by crystal clear tone and the ability to convey great emotion without histrionics.

Day’s first major film role was in Romance on the High Seas (1948). From there she made a long series of musicals, including Calamity Jane (1953), Young at Heart (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), and The Pajama Game (1957). Her screen persona, that of an intelligent, wholesome woman of unfailing optimism and understated strength of character, came to epitomize the ideal American woman of the 1950s. Day went on to star in a string of sophisticated gender comedies, notably Teacher’s Pet (1958), Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961), That Touch of Mink (1962), The Thrill of It All (1963), and Send Me No Flowers (1964). These comedies made her Hollywood’s leading box-office attraction. From 1968 to 1973 she starred in The Doris Day Show, a weekly television series.

As her acting career neared its end, Day focused her attention on animals, cofounding Actors and Others for Animals. In 1978 she founded the Doris Day Pet Foundation, and nine years later she became a founding member and president of the Doris Day Animal League, a lobbying organization for laws regulating the treatment of animals.

Details

Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.

Day was one of the biggest film stars of the 1950s–1960s. Day's film career began during the Golden Age of Hollywood with the film Romance on the High Seas (1948). She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, dramas, and thrillers. She played the title role in Calamity Jane (1953) and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All (1963), and starred alongside Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Ginger Rogers, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Rod Taylor in various movies. After ending her film career in 1968, only briefly removed from the height of her popularity, she starred in her own sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968–1973).

In 1989, she was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2008, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as well as a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 2011, she was awarded the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award. The same year, she released her 29th studio album, My Heart, which contained new material and became a UK Top 10 album. As of 2020, she was one of eight recording artists to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times.

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