When WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist Candace Parker makes a move, you know it’s going to be big. Today on Instagram she not only told the world that she married former Russian Olympic basketball player Anna Petrakova two years ago, but that Petrakova is pregnant.
Parker shared photos on Instagram of her and Petrakova at their wedding with “close family and friends,” and ones of a visibly pregnant Petrakova (along with Parker’s 12-year-old daughter from her first marriage). (Click the little arrow on the middle right of the image to scroll through them all.) They look so happy! Also, I can totally respect a person who wears sneakers with a wedding gown.
Two other women’s pro basketball power couples had babies this year: The Seattle Storm’s Breanna Stewart and Marta Xargay Casademont, a Spanish pro player and former WNBA player, welcomed their child one day after Stewart won gold at the Tokyo Olympics. And fellow Tokyo gold medalist Diana Taurasi and her spouse Penny Taylor, a former WNBA player and coach, had their second child between WNBA playoff games in October, when Taurasi flew home in a rush from Las Vegas to Phoenix after uttering the immortal words, “Hold it in, babe. I’m coming.”
Parker herself not only won Olympic gold this year with Taurasi and Stewart, but led the Chicago Sky to the WNBA Championship in October, beating Taurasi’s Phoenix Mercury.
One doesn’t have to be a championship basketball player to be a queer mom, of course, but isn’t it nice to know that one could be both?