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Introduction

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Athletics has been an age long organized sport. They are games and event which was developed from the normal human activities, like running, walking, jumping, and throwing.

They are an international group of sports as nearly all countries engage in the competitions in one way or the other. One of the prominent athletic sports events is the Olympic Games. It is a sporting event that is held every four years.

Another one is the Commonwealth Wealth Games, it also takes place every four years. In the following written words I shall discuss about the Top 3 Athletes I Admire, but before then what is Athletics?

What is Athletics?

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Any group of sports where track and fields events takes place is known as Athletics. From the definition above we can see that it involves two events namely:

• Track events - these are sporting events where all forms of running and walking are done.

• Field events - these are sporting events where all forms of throwing and jumping are involved.

Below are the top three athletes that I admire the most.

Serena Williams: Female Lawn Tennis Player

Serena Williams is a female American who plays Tennis professionally. She was born in Saginaw, Michigan to Oracene Price and Richard Williams on the 26th of September, 1981.

As a child she moved to Campton, California, with her family, she began playing there at the age of four. At the age of nine, she moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, with her family from Campton where she was to attend the Rick Macci academy, and was given additional coaching. During this time she was able to create a feat where she had a 46-3 record on the United States Tennis Association thus becoming the number one in the under-10 category of players in Florida.

Williams started he professional career in October 1995 when she participated in the Bell Challenge in Quebec, by using a wild-card entry in order to circumvent the rules regarding age-eligibility. She lost to then 18 year old Annie Miller in the first qualifying round after winning just two games.

She got her first career win when she won Mary Pierce and Monica Seles who were ranked No 7 & 4 respectively, thus making her the lowest-ranked (No 304) player in the Open Era to defeat two players in the top 10 in the same tournament.

Since then she has gone on to become world No. 1 where she's was ranked at that position by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and attained that position for 319 weeks, which also includes a joint-record of 186 consecutive weeks and finished at the end of the year being No. 1 five times.

She has garnered 23 Grand Slam titles in the singles category which is the most any player has attained in the Open Era, but overall it is the second-most of all time just behind Margret Court's with 24. She has also won doubles along with her sister on 14 major championship and they are unbeaten in a Grand Slam doubles final.

She has also won four Olympic gold medals where she won three as doubles along with her sister (an all time joint record that she shares with her sister). To add to it, she has won two major mixed doubles titles in 1998.

Overall, she has won 73 career titles (the fifth all time) and has a career record of 855–153 with 84.8% return. She is regarded as one of the greatest female tennis player of all time. Her arrival along with her sister has been seen to bring about a new phase of power and athleticism on women's professional tennis.

Elaine Thompson-Herah: Female Runner

Elaine Thomson is from Banana Group local government in Manchester Parish, Jamaica. As a young lad she had stints as a runner in Christiana High School and Manchester High School where she was a good scholastic athlete but not an outstanding one at the time.

At that time her best results was in 2009 when she attained fourth position in the Class Two 100 meters with a 12.01s record at ISSA Grace Kennedy Boys and Girls Championship.

In 2011, she wasn't included to the track team during her final year at Manchester High due to disciplinary issues. She was later recruited to the University of Technology, Jamaica by the brother of MVP Track Club head coach Stephen Francis. At this point her run times saw an improvement due to the influence of the MVP coaching.

Thompson clocked a sensational best of 11.41s for the Gibson Relays in 2013, then went on to place second at the Jamaican Intercollegiate Championship just behind Carrie Russell. Then she went on to win gold in the 4 × 100 metres relay at the Central American and Caribbean Championship as she ran the first leg for the Jamaican team where it won in 43.58s.

In 2016, she managed to set a personal best with a time of 10.70s in the 100 metres race thus winning the Jamaican Championship event. However, she wasn't able to advance to the semifinals of the 200m race as she ran for 23.34s.

She went on to win gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, in the 100m final where she had a run time of 10.71s which was slightly ahead of the second Tori Bowie's 10.83s. Thompson won gold again in the 200m final with a run time of 21.78s which was 10millisecond more than Dafne Schippers whom placed second with 21.88s as run time. She eventually became the first Jamaican female sprinter to win the 100 & 200 metres sprints respectively in a single Olympic Games and was seventh overall.

In 2020, she was involved in seven different 100m races and got run times of under 11s in five of them in the process getting a season-best of 10.85s (and 10.73 with illegal wind). She also won two Diamond League meets that was staged as a single event due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the 200m race, she got a season-best of 22.19s.

In 2020, Thompson placed third in the 100m & 200m race with run times of 10.84s & 22.02s respectively at the Jamaican Championship, and it was enough to help her qualify for the delayed 2020 Olympic Games for both events. During the month of July, she defeated Fraser-Pryce to win the Continental Tour's Székesfehérvár Memorial with a run time of 10.71s in 100m race. That was her fastest time dating back to 2017, and it was 0.01s off her personal best.

At the end of the season Thompson laid claim to four records in the top ten marks woman statistics of all-time. She was the only woman to hold four marks and three marks in the 100m & 200m races respectively. She was also the only woman to run four legal times under 10.70s for a 100m race and three legal times under 21.70 for a 200m race.

This made her make history in the season and for that she was awarded the World Athletics' World Female Athlete of year award, she also received the Best Female Athlete of the year by International Sport Press Association, Female Athlete of the year in North America, Central America, Caribbean Athletic Association, Track & Field News. She also went on to win so many other accolades.

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Kobe Bryant: Male Basket Baller

Kobe Bean Bryant, born on the 23rd of August and died on the 26th of January 2020, was a professional basketball athlete. He was a shooting guard and played all of his career which spans 20 years at Los Angeles Lakers which is among the teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

He was born in Philadelphia, and was the youngest the three children his parents had. He was the only son to a former NBA player Joe Bryant and his wife Pamela Cox Bryant. He also had a link to NBA player John "Chubby" Cox as he was Cox's maternal cousin.

At a young age of Six, he and his family moved to Reiti in Italy after his father just retired from the NBA. Two years later, they moved again to Reggio Calabria, then to Pistola and the to Reggio Emilia. At Reggio Emilia, Bryant began to play basketball very seriously. He also played a little bit of soccer as his favorite team at the time was A.C Milan.

At age thirteen, he moved back to Philadelphia with his family and he enrolled at Bala Cynwyd Middle School in eight grade.

Bryant gained national recognition when he played at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore where he had a spectacular high school career. He then went on to play as a varsity basketball player as a freshman. Because of this, he made history as the first freshman to start for Lower Merion's varsity team in a decade. During his his junior year, he gathered up stats including averaging 31.1 points, 10.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 3.8 block, and 2.3 steals. All these made him get recognized as being named as the Pennsylvania Player of the year and also getting the fourth team parade All-America nomination too, in the process attracting the attention of college recruiters.

He started his career in Summer Pro League in Long Beach, CA, where he scored 25 points in front of a crowd that was in a standing room. His approach to the game made defenders to struggle to stand in front of him, his performance was exciting to the then West and Lakers coach Del Harris. He finished with an average of 24.5 points and 5.3 rebounds in four games and scored 36 points in the finale. At the time he became the youngest NBA starter at 18 years and 158 days and second-youngest player to ever feature in an NBA game at age 18 years and 72 days.

After much improvements Bryant was recognized as one of the premier shooting guards in the league and these gave him access to appearances in the league's All-NBA, All-Stars, and All-Defensive teams. This was as a result of having a new coach Phil Jackson as the coach of L.A Lakers, and after implementing a new coaching method, they went on to win the championship in 2000, 2001, and 2002. This made Kobe Bryant along with Shaquille O'Neal to rise and become part of the elite class.

On the thirteenth of April, Bryant scored 60 points which was an NBA season-high in the season finale and his last game against Utah, he outscored the entire Utah team 23-21 in the fourth quarter as Lakers went on to win 101-96. This made him become the oldest player to score 60 points or more in a game at age 37 and 234 days old. The team however finished
with a 17-65 record; their worst record ever in the franchise history.

During his career he has won a lot of titles and self accolades. The image below displays some of his achievements.

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Conclusion

We have seen what athletics entails and we have seen some of the greatest athletes. These people are not just great athletes they are also wonderful people who use their athlet to inspire the lives of millions.

They are all achievers as they have achieved so much in their chosen form of athletics and have also improved the games.

I choose them because in their respective fields, they all stand out. They started small and began to grow big little by little. Even despite some sad turn of events they still remained true to their aspirations.