By Tennis Now | @Tennis_Now | Friday, September 27, 2024
Photograph credit score: Mike Lawrence/USTA/US Open
It is a golden 12 months for iconic Corridor of Famer Billie Jean King.
King has made historical past as the primary feminine athlete awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. The laws was signed by President Biden after passing each chambers of Congress.
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Yesterday President Biden signed into legislation laws to award Billie Jean King the Congressional Gold Medal, following passage of the invoice within the Senate and Home of Representatives, making her the primary particular person feminine athlete to be awarded this honor.
The laws (S. 2861) was initially launched into the Home of Representatives (H.R. 1831) in March of 2023 by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Democratic co-lead Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), “To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Billie Jean King, an American icon, in recognition of a exceptional life dedicated to championing equal rights for all, in sports activities and in society.”
The invoice handed unanimously within the Senate in Could of this 12 months, by way of the management of Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and within the Home of Representatives earlier this month.
Previous to Billie Jean King being awarded this distinction, 11 particular person athletes (in addition to the 1980 U.S. Olympic crew) had obtained the Congressional Gold Medal, however all had been males.
The introduction of the laws in 2023 coincided with the USTA’s celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of equal prize cash being awarded on the US Open. In 1973, the US Open grew to become the primary sporting occasion in historical past to supply equal prize cash to each women and men opponents, with every competing for complete purses of $100,000, together with a $25,000 payout to each the boys’s and ladies’s singles champion.
“The passing of the Congressional Gold Medal laws by way of Congress and its signing into legislation by the President signify the end result of a protracted constructing course of to acknowledge and award Billie Jean King for her lifelong struggle and push for equality on this nation,” mentioned Dr. Brian Hainline, Chairman of the Board and President, USTA. “Billie is likely one of the best athletes and ambassadors the game of tennis has ever seen, and her affect off the court docket is even higher than her efficiency on it.
“The USTA want to thank the members of Congress for making this a actuality, in addition to the President for signing this laws, as Billie Jean King has now damaged one other barrier to develop into the primary particular person feminine athlete to have been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.”
Billie Jean King grew to become the pioneer for equal prize cash when she received the ladies’s singles title on the 1972 US Open and unequivocally demanded that the next 12 months’s US Open pay males’s and ladies’s gamers equally. King’s ultimatum set the tone for a momentous 12 months forward, which first noticed the formation of the Girls’s Tennis Affiliation.
After the 1973 US Open milestone of equal pay, King then defeated Bobby Riggs within the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match at Houston’s iconic Astrodome, a match that helped to propel the ladies’s motion in each sports activities and in society, and nonetheless stays the most-watched tennis match ever.
