Jennifer Lacy’s father, Lee, was a Major League Baseball player, so it makes sense that she would have chosen to go into athletics. It’s in her blood, her genes, her birthright. After playing basketball during college at Pepperdine University, she joined the WNBA. During the off-season between 2008 and 2009, she went to China, where she played for Beijing Shougang.
In 2013, she was attacked by her ex-girlfriend, former WNBA player Chamique Holdsclaw, who poured gasoline on and shot into her car when she was in it. Luckily, she wasn’t injured during the attack, and Holdsclaw was arrested for the incident.
Marta Menegatti
This Italian pro-beach volleyball player has been playing her sport since before she even turned 10 years old. Talk about an early start! Now, she’s the proud holder of 2 golds, 7 silvers, and 7 bronze medals on the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour. In September of 2015, she and the rest of the Italian women’s national team won their first World Tour title.
For a while, she was dating another pro volleyball player from her country named Alex Rangheri but the two are reportedly no longer together. She stays very active on her Instagram, where she has nearly 50,000 followers.
Camila Giorgi
This Italian pro tennis player won her first International Tennis Federation tournament in 2009 and made her Women’s Tennis Association debut a couple of years later in 2011. That same year, she reached the finals in Raleigh and closed the year with a total of 36 wins.
She won her first WTA title in 2015 and earned the highest ranking of her career - #26 – 3 years later. Giorgi is very active on her Instagram account, where she frequently posts photos of herself for her 237,000 followers, as well as on her official Facebook page which has 280,000 followers.
Alana Blanchard
Blanchard, like most surfers (and a lot of athletes, for that matter), risks her life pretty much every time she goes out in the water and does what she does. Surfers get injured every day – or worse, attacked by sharks, which actually happened to one of her friends right in front of her. But she didn't let that stop her. She got right back on the board and kept doing what she loves.
Besides being an incredible surfer, Alana Blanchard is also a swimwear model who appears in ads for Curl Swimwear, and she recently signed an endorsement deal with Reebok, as well. She also stays pretty active on her Instagram, where she has over 1.8 million followers.
Allison Stokke
Even those who don’t really follow pole vaulting more than likely know of Allison Stokke, considering she is arguably the most famous woman in the sport. But that’s mainly because a photo of her waiting to jump during an event went viral and launched her to stardom. Even though she was shy of 18 by several months at the time, the photo spawned (new) male fans to make “internet crush” sites based on the image.
But, had it not been for that image, she may not have made it into the likes of "The New York Times," "L.A Times" and "Washington Post." Sure, it’s very creepy how it happened, but hey – it happened, right? Years later, she has all kinds of brand endorsement deals with major brands like Nike.