This retired Olympian is one of the greatest female swimmers of all time. She’s won 12 Olympic medals over the course of her career, not to mention becoming the first woman ever to swim the 100-meter backstroke in less than 60 seconds – before she even turned 20.
She’s also got numerous titles to her name, including three American Swimmer of the Year awards and 1 World Swimmer of the Year. She’s scored a number of brand deals and was the face of C20 Coconut Water. She’s also appeared in a few magazines and TV shows, like “Dancing with the Stars” and “Chopped.”
Ali Krieger
This pro-soccer player was the captain of her college team when she was a senior at Penn State. Right after graduation, her career began with the Washington Freedom, and by 2008, the U.S. women’s national team was calling her up to play in the Summer Olympics. FOX named her one of Soccer’s Best 11 for her incredible efforts as a right back in the FIFA Women’s World Cup match.
She had a serious injury to her knee a few years later, which is terrible for any athlete to experience (or anyone, for that matter), but she was right back on the field not long after her surgery. Aside from being an awesome soccer player, she’s also got a huge heart, which she makes apparent through her philanthropic work. She works with several non-profit organizations, including MiracleFeet and Athlete Ally, which fight for the equality of all sexual orientations within the pro sports world.
Ellen Hoog
Hoog represents the Dutch Women’s Field Hockey Team, which she originally joined in 2004. And since then, she’s played in over 125 matches and brought home several medals, including 2 golds, which she won during the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. A few years earlier, in 2006, she helped her squad to the Women’s Hockey World Cup victory. Then, in 2016, she won another Olympic medal, this time, silver, when she scored the game-winning shot.
Hoog is sponsored by Ritual Hockey, with whom she discussed her pregame rituals, one of which is putting her right shin guard on before her left. The other? She watched the famed rom-com, "The Notebook," with the rest of her team.
Toni Duggan
Duggan is a professional English soccer player that got into the sport at a very young age. In fact, she was already playing in the FIFA World Cup when she was just 15 years old. How incredible! She was given the title of the FA Women’s Young Player of the Year in 2009 and England’s Women’s Under-23 Player of the Year in 2012.
A few years later, she became the first of England’s women’s team to exceed 100,000 followers on social media. She represents a few different non-profit organizations, including Kick it Out, which works to fight discrimination in football.
Érika Cristiano dos Santos
Érika Cristiano dos Santos, who commonly just goes by Érika (it is quite a mouthful, after all), is a major professional soccer star from Brazil. She helped lead the Brazilian women’s national team to a silver medal victory at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Aside from being a talented, award-winning athlete in her country, she’s also an advocate for gender equality, both in sports and Brazil as a whole. She was involved recently in a major open letter written by 100 female athletes condemning the country for investing much more in men’s football and not giving women a fair and equal opportunity.