I still love Katie Hnida, who kicked for the University of New Mexico Lobos. She is a badass too.

of all time? Steffi Graf.
Right now? Abby Wambach.

Mia Hamm! The best female soccer player in the world in history and she scored more international goals in her career than any other player, male or female. PLUS she created the Mia Hamm Foundation for providing support for two important causes: raising funds and awareness for bone marrow transplant patients and continuing the growth in opportunities for young women in sports. Um, pretty badass, right?!

I *heart* Mia Hamm.

missy giove.

incredibly fucking inspiring to a young dyke-in-training in the mid 90's. love her! dirt and all.

http://bikemag.com/news/082803_missy_cutting.jpg

Cat Osterman, even if they do need to reconfigure the sizes of softball diamonds to match the reality of 6'2" pitchers who can throw the ball 70 mph from like two feet away.

I have a serious basketball crush on Kara Lawson. It's so much fun to watch her play.. she isn't amazingly physically gifted but she works hard enough and plays well enough to make my favorite basketball team win championships (well, one, anyway). And she's a really good announcer too, and whenever I've heard her talk I've been pretty impressed and, well, I'm not being very articulate here so I'll just end with a link to an article about her :)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/14/AR2007071401015.html

Cammi Granato (Women's Ice Hockey), ftw!

The entire Canadian Women's 2006 Olympic hockey team, of course.

http://www.hockeycanada.ca/5/8/3/0/index1.shtml

Ella Waldek, former pro wrestler. I saw her in Lipstick & Dynamite and fell in love.

My favorite current athlete is probably Stroker Ace of BRRG.

Well, I'm a soccer freak, so I have to go with some of my footballers. Mia Hamm is an age-old favorite. Michelle Akers, who suffered from chronic fatigue, and would leave the field and get IVs, but played harder than ANYONE, and I mean anyone, including the younger Ms. Hamm, ever played a game. TOUGH.

But last month, Hope Solo won me over. I hate when athletes or anyone else let themselves be trampled over by those in charge. I was so happy when Solo said something about it after she was benched for no logical reason during the World Cup. I know, I know, her comments weren't great for team morale, but neither was Coach Ryan's decision. He shouldn't get away with it just because he's the coach. (and he didn't, he got fired today). But anyway, here's the outspoken Solo, proving she's as much a bad ass off the field as on. BOLD. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkWMkEFLkec

I was actually surprised Feministing wasn't talking about this "controversy" when it happened, given the extremely sexist responses she was getting from espn and other sports news mediums...

I'm not super duper into sports, so this is a froufy one, but I love watching Sasha Cohen! I love the costumes and the hammy performances and the jumps are amazing to watch. It's my guilty pleasure.

so many! To name a few: Jen Adams of Maryland's amazing lacrosse team, the UCONN women from 1995 (first to go undefeated), the 2006 Maryland bball team, Diana Taurasi, and Lynn Hill (rock climber).

My favorite female athletes? The women who play sports in high school and college -- Title IX is the law but that law is not enforced, even after 35 years. So any woman who still plays in spite of inferior fields or equipment, whose teams practice at less desirable times, or who compete not only with other teams but also with ever-present hostility toward women's sports (i.e., "their" sports take away precious resources to men's sports) -- she's my sports hero!

Though I'm not much of a sports fan, I will say Sheryl Swoopes, for being a great athlete and having the bravery to come out of the closet when she did. Living in Houston (near where I'm from) that couldn't have been easy.

I like too many to name all of them, so basically any woman who plays soccer or hockey, and not just the famous ones.

But I agree completely, Commodore08. It made me so mad that people were saying she shouldn't have said anything; I hate that about American sports in the first place, but it made it even worse that there were so many sexist comments all over the place. At least everyone piled on Greg Ryan (deservedly) too. Thanks for letting me know that Ryan got fired! That's awesome news.

I want to add that I also love Natasha Kai, simply because of her full sleeve, and Abby Wambach and Julie Foudy for being bad-ass liberals.

There is no athlete more inspiring than Soraya Jimenez.

If you don't know her story it's worth looking up.

I'm with prof/activist. Enough of the celebrity lovin. Let's spread it to the "nameless" ones. My daughter is my current favorite athlete. You should see her lil 4yo legs run during soccer.

Title IX gave me the extra oomph in my stride as a kid. Even if I wasn't that great, I knew I had a place on the field.

AND readers, there is a great piece on Title IX in the new Ms.

janel mccarville. amazing athlete and the wnba's m.i.p.

Enough of the celebrity lovin'? Mine weren't exactly celebrities, but I'll add more because I love women who kick ass.

My favorite female athletes are my fellow rollergirls. I know there is some disagreement on roller derby in the feminist blogosphere, but damn, we ROCK">http://www.myspace.com/rockandrollergirls">ROCK.

Danica Patrick is my favorite female athlete. She came close to winning three races this past IndyCar season.

Roberta Gibb and Kathleen Switzer, who ran the 1967 Boston Marathon despite that fact that it was men-only. Gibb ran unofficially, but Switzer actually registered, using her first initials only. Race officials tried to pull her off the course, but she finished. She eventually went on to direct the Women's Sports Foundation.

this thread makes me miss Sports Illustrated for Women, which made a brief appearence in the late '90s, and was gone by 2002. Anyone remember it?

As for a favorite women athlete, I'd go with the Rutgers women's basketball team, mostly becuase they had a stellar season, but also b/c of their poise through the Imus flap, or Paula Radcliffe.

I second Danica Patrick. Any woman in motorsports gets my vote.

I think what may be most positive in considering this question is the range of possibilities out there for favorite female athlete. Just in the comments so far, there's been American football, motorsports, soccer (including 4yo player), basketball, etc., etc.

However, I do have to question, since it is the largest women's only sporting event in the world, why the Women's World Cup last month (including the American intra-team controversy near the end of the event) merited zero mention on this blog? The event mentioned in this post was in celebration of women's sports and athletes. Well, strong female athletes were live on our TV screens for 3 weeks during Sept and, if you only read this blog, you never would have known it.

Jix - I'm with you on our fellow rollergirls. I can't think of a more athletic, determined and amazing community of kick ass women!

Taryne Mowatt. Amazing during this year's WCWS. And although she probably doesn't fall into the class of athlete, Pat Summitt is incredible.

Martina Navratilova, forever and ever. I loved her twenty years ago and love her now, still kicking serious ass at 50.

Abby Wambach? Sigh. I had to sadly end that infatuation after the Hope Solo kerfuffle and the crap-ass way, in my very humble opinion, Abby reacted to it.

Steffi Graf was unbelievably dominant (I was too young to fully appreciate Navratilova, although from what I have seen she was just as dominant and probably more entertaining stylistically). As long as we are naming coaches as well, I would say Kirsten Kimmel, although this would be based more on her courage and integrity than her sporting accomplishments.

I love women who push their way into the men's territory. Katie Hnida kicking in D1 football, Jennie Finch challenging major leaguers to hit her pitch, Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie playing golf against the men. I love the fighters like Graciela Casillas, Kathy Long, Lucia Rijker and Ann Wolfe, and the wrestlers like Patricia Miranda. I love the drivers: Shirley Muldowney, Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James, Michelle Mouton in rally, and Danica. I love the out lesbians like King and Navratilova when the police cars from Stonewall were still smoldering. I love the women who refuse to be "nice girls" -- Missy Giove and Amy van Dyken (who has performed in the Vagina Monologues). I love the women who weren't afraid to be big and physical: Bev Francis, the beginning of modern women's bodybuilding; and Serena Williams and Jenny Thompson, who are both conventionally attractive and physically capable of intimidating men.

And let us not forget the mother of all swaggering, dominant female athletes, Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Babe was good at everything, and she knew it. She played baseball, basketball and golf, ran, high-jumped and threw javelin. She also sang professionally, played harmonica, and sewed her own clothes. Anything she wanted to do, she could. When she showed up for golf tournaments, she'd say (loudly, from the practice range) "So who's playing for second?"

Marta Vieira da Silva- women's soccer, Brazil. Currently the best female player in the world and considered by many to be the best soccer player period- beating out Ronaldinho, Beckham, you name it.

"Marta Vieira da Silva- women's soccer, Brazil. Currently the best female player in the world and considered by many to be the best soccer player period- beating out Ronaldinho, Beckham, you name it." - Laurinha

What credible sources say she is better than Ronaldinho and Beckham? I am not disagreeing with you (although I am doubtful seeing as she does not have a contract with a men’s professional team), I simply don’t know much about the sport. Or did you mean she dominates women’s soccer more than any man dominates men’s soccer?