100 of the Most Influential Women in Sport: Elena Delle Donne

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  • Elena Delle Donne

    100 of the Most Influential Women in Sport >> Athletes

    Elena Delle Donne, USA

    WNBA

    There are women featured on this list who are metaphorical giants in their fields, few though quite match up to size with Delle Donne, quite literally. At 6ft5, the American WNBA icon is a powerful figure on the court and having played some of the best basketball of her career in 2018, the 29-year-old is rising above the rim to embolden women across the globe. Over the last 12 months, Delle Donne has really broken through the wall to speak up on the disparity between the NBA and WNBA and the wider social context woven into the two league’s differences. She pushed back against NBA commissioner Adam Silver after he criticised low turnouts for WNBA games last year, calling on the NBA to better market the women’s game as it does so well with the men. Her message was for companies to back up the talk of supporting women by walking to the bank and it was an important turning point because the weight of her words carried it far and wide. She is growing into her role as a WNBA vet, one of the most recognisable faces in the sport and now activist. All this without even considering the lofty achievement of leading the Washington Mystics to the brink of a first WNBA Championship. Remarkably, the Olympic gold medallist did so while continuing to fight Lyme disease, an incurable illness she was diagnosed with during her sophomore year at University of Delaware. But outside her dominance on the court, it is Delle Donne’s willingness to speak up which deserves such special attention, whether it be on Lyme disease, gender inequality or the special needs community for which she is a strong voice for with her older sister Lizzie born blind and deaf with cerebral palsy and autism.

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  • – Delle Donne propelled the Mystics to the franchise’s first ever WNBA Finals in 2018, starring at power forward in both the regular season and playoffs.

    – She became the fastest player in WNBA history to score 3,000 points last season, completing the feat in 148 games.

    – Her success in 2018 saw Delle Donne voted into the WNBA All-Star Game for the fifth time in her career, this time as a captain.

    – Over the last 12 months she’s written and released five books, MyShot, a memoir and a series for kids aged 8-12.

    – Last year she used Twitter to call out NBA commissioner Adam Silver for failing to market the WNBA sufficiently.

    Did you now…

    Unsurprisingly Delle Donne is pretty talented in other sports as well with golf one of her biggest passions. Ernest Delle Donne took his daughter and son onto the golf course during their childhood and Elena now holds an annual charity golf tournament which benefits her foundation.

    “You can kind of just see that women aren’t valued the same way that men are in the workforce. It gets frustrating, but you’ve just got to continue to fight the battle. And it’s a societal problem that I think the league [NBA] and the W [WNBA] can spearhead and kind of start a movement going.” – Delle Donne (Source: Uninterrupted)

    Twitter: @De11eDonne

    Instagram: de11edonne

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