Of all colors the one Serena Williams said she likes most is golden. Until this week her choice had no meaning to Serena, but now she is well aware of what it is in a career of a successful athlete.
Serena had confessed on a few occasions that she came to London to have some fun, collect some pins and mingle with fellow athletes and never too serious about her tennis.
But she left with a lasting legacy claiming two gold medals, completing a career grand slam, a feat previously achieved by only one woman – the legendary Steffi Graf.
If that was not enough, Serena gave London what it was badly missing – a show symbol – that has already become one of the most-watched video clippings of the Games.
Her impromptu Crip-Walk after she crushed Maria Sharapova in the singles final is already a big hit in her native USA having watched by more than a million on video site YouTube.
People have become so curious about the dance that it is slowly moving to the status of Zinedine Zidan’s famous head-butt to Italian Marco Materazzi in 2006 World Cup football final.
Sporting world is still debating if Zidane did it right and so is being debated Serena’s dance also.
The Crip-Walk, also known as the C-Walk, originated in the early 1970s by the Crip gang members from Serena’s hometown Compton. It was performed by Crips gang members at parties and became a signature dance.
Various rap musicians adopted the dance and gave it the name Crip-Walk, which was performed on many music videos until it was banned by MTV for its negative image.
Serena has been criticised for portraying gangs in a positive light though she refused it and said she was just doing a happy dance after a huge Olympic victory and that too without any pre-plan.
‘I don’t think I ever danced like that. I don’t even know where the dance came from. It’s just a dance we do in California, I’d say, west coast,’ Serena told after her win.
Her own half sister was killed in a gang-related shooting, so Serena said there was no question of her glorifying the gangs. She later renamed her dance – ‘Serena Williams Victory Dance.’
It was a kind of win that sometimes even surpassed Serena’s own expectations as well. She has been the most dominant figure this year in the women’s tennis circuit. But no one really expected her to beat Sharapova, ranked number two currently, so easily by 6-0, 6-1.
It has been the most one-sided women’s singles tennis final in the Olympics history, but it was always on card.
In the quarter-finals, she defeated Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki, who began the year as the world’s top player, 6-0, 6-3, and Serena faced current world number one Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in the semi-finals to beat her 6-1, 6-2.
The fact that no one has won more than three games against her made the Olympics most consistent tournament for her in days. And after a golden double with her sister Venus Williams, the pair’s fourth in a row, Serena has become the most successful tennis player in the Games.
When the London Olympics began on July 27, Serena was not certainly the biggest attraction. The focus was on Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt and to some extent on Roger Federer.
Phelps cemented his place as the greatest ever Olympian with four gold medals and Bolt also retained his 100-metre sprint crown in an emphatic style.
But they too had had some worrying moments. Phelps lost a few races while Bolt stumbled at the start of his first heat, finishing it only as the ninth best. But unlike them Serena was completely dominant in her sport, without needing to worry for a second for her laurels.
And the off-the-field storm made the Olympics hers, as much as it is for Phelps and Bolt.
-With New Age input
