Venus Williams

Grew up training in Compton alongside her younger sister Serena. Pioneered the modern power game in women's tennis and built a fashion and design business alongside her playing career.

Venus arrived first. She turned professional first, reached a major final first, and took the first round of everything the sport had to say about two Black girls from Compton. Whatever Serena walked into, Venus had already walked into it a year earlier, without a sister ahead of her to describe it.

Seven singles majors and five Olympic golds is the sporting record. The other record is better. Venus argued, in public and in print, that Wimbledon paying women less than men was indefensible, and she kept arguing after the years when winning it would have paid her the difference. The All England Club moved to equal prize money in 2007. Every woman who has played there since has been paid under a rule she went and got.

EleVen, her design company, is hers rather than a licensing deal with her name stapled on. She has been a working owner for as long as she was a working champion, which is the same instinct that runs through her sister's investment firm and through every artist on this platform who kept their own masters.

She also kept playing through Sjögren's syndrome, an autoimmune condition she has spoken about openly, long after the trophies stopped being the reason.