“I never wanted to choose between tennis and family.” But then age comes into play. “I’m 41 years old and I have to give up something.” Serena Williams is about to hang up her racket. She leaves the world of tennis behind her, concluding a career of 73 titles in the singles (including 23 in the Grand Slams), with no regrets. The match is about to end but something bigger awaits her: discovering the “new Serena”. This is why she does not like the word “retreat”, but prefers to use “evolution”: “I have to focus on being a mom – was the athlete’s announcement on Instagram -, my spiritual goals and finally discovering a other, exciting Serena ». Williams hints that the US Open could therefore be her last tournament. And she who knows if she will be seen again on the pitch with a racket and stroller. We will certainly not see the scene of January 12, 2020, when in New Zealand, beating the young compatriot Jessica Pegula, she won the Auckland Open and exhibited her daughter, little Alexis Olympia, born in 2017. “I don’t want to be pregnant again like athlete – underlined Williams -. I need to be two feet in tennis or two feet out. ‘
Serena Williams: “My daughter Olympia Ohanian is the best of me, forever”
He is an athlete, he is a mother. She won, she lost and now she is reborn. Like her, there are many champions who have found themselves in the balance between career and family: some have returned to raise the trophies even with the little ones at home and others have chosen to start a new life. There are those like Elisa Di Francisca, a former fencer, who showed herself in the Italian uniform while she was nursing little Ettore, during a break from training. And who, like the Indian volleyball player from Mizoram, Lalventluangi, heard her son cry during her match and was replaced to go and breastfeed him on the bench. The photo went viral and moved the world. Sophie Power, ultramarathoner, completed the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc, 170 kilometers in the mountains, breastfeeding her 3-month-old son during the run.
It’s still. Tania Cagnotto and Francesca Dallapè made millions of people dream with their dives, to then show themselves together no longer on trampolines but in the midst of diapers and strollers, with their dreams come true. There are those who have broken down the stereotype according to which an athlete can no longer be competitive after giving birth: Allyson Felix, American sprinter, won the twelfth gold medal in the mixed 4x400m ten months after a premature birth performed with a caesarean. urgency. But even the baby bump is not an obstacle: Kerry Walsh Jannings, American volleyball player, took gold at the London 2012 Games in 5 weeks pregnant beach volleyball and Anja Fichtel, German fencing champion, won a national championship in the fifth month and returned on the platform 43 days after the birth of little Laurin.
Finally, there are those who have passed the baton to their children: Fiona May, no longer a protagonist on the track, is now next to Larissa Iapichino and flies with her between the platform and the sand. Because with her children you don’t stop dreaming: she starts again.
