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Nigerian-born Paola Egonu named World’s Best Volleyball Player

Italian volleyball player Paola Egonu, who is of Nigerian descent, has been voted the best volleyball player in the world for 2024.
The International Volleyball Federation (Volleyball World) named Egonu from Milano and the Italian national team ahead of Brazil’s Gabi Guimarães, who took second place.
“The queen of volleyball! It was no surprise that the opposite hitter was honored as the MVP of the Nations League and Paris 2024—two of many MVP titles she has earned in prestigious national team and club competitions throughout her extraordinary career. Brava, Paola,” stated Volleyball World in a statement.
Egonu enjoyed an impressive year, clinching the Nations League and the historic Olympic gold with Italy at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Her season could have been even more successful, had she secured a domestic league title with Milano, her club.
She won silver in the Champions League, the Italian Cup, the Courmayeur Cup, and the Italian Supercup.
She also finished third in the Italian League and the Club World Championship.
The list of top players of the year includes four more Italians: libero Monica De Gennaro occupies the sixth position, followed by outside hitter Myriam Sylla (6th) and setter Alessia Orro (9th).
Rounding up the Top 10 are Brazil’s Gabi Guimarães, Kathryn Plummer from the United States, Mellisa Vargas from Turkey, Joana Wolosz from Poland, Sarina Koga from Japan, and Agnieszka Korneluk from Poland.
Gabi Guimarães also clinched the Club World Championship with Conegliano of Italy and the Olympic bronze with the Brazilian national team.
Egonu expressed her gratitude on social media, thanking her teammates, coaches, friends, family, and everyone who believed in her.
She stated that the title is not only hers, but also a result of a wonderful and difficult year, highlighting the importance of work, passion, and community.
“This title is not only mine, it comes to the end of a wonderful, but also very difficult year.
“Work, passion, and community can take us anywhere (not just in volleyball). Thank you from the bottom of my heart, truly,” Egonu said.
Racism creeps in
Chorus of condemnation trailed thers have denounced the defacing of a street-art celebration of Paola Egonu, who helped lead Italy to its first-ever Olympic gold medal in women’s volleyball in Paris and who has faced years of racist abuse at home.
Egonu, who bagged Italian citizenship at 14 when his father was naturalized, was named tournament MVP after she led Italy to beat the U.S. defending champions.
Hours after the Games ended, street artist Laika celebrated Egonu with a work of graffiti opposite the Rome headquarters of the Italian Olympic Committee.
Entitled “Italianness,” the graffiti showed Egonu, with her trademark long ponytail and wearing her Azzurri blue uniform, spiking a ball that had the words “Stop racism, hatred, xenophobia,” on it.
It was a reference to the years of racist abuse Egonu has endured as a Black athlete in Italy, with prominent figures regularly questioning her citizenship and “Italianness.”
A day after images of Laika’s graffiti celebration began circulating, someone painted over the original work, turning Egonu’s dark skin pink and blurring out the words on the volleyball.

The Egonu murall
Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri denounced the vandalism as a “vile, shameful insult” to both Egonu and Laika.
In a statement that praised Egonu’s athletic greatness and Laika’s commitment to fighting xenophobia, Gualtieri said it was “sad that in 2024 there are still racists who are prisoners of their own ignorance who want to roll back the hands of history.”
At some point on Tuesday, someone used a dark marker to try to restore Laika’s original design.
In 2022, Egonu threatened to quit the national team after being subject to racist abuse online questioning whether she was Italian, evidence of common assumptions here that anyone who is Black is a newly arrived migrant.
In a social media post explaining the graffiti, Laika wrote that there’s no place in Italy for xenophobia, racism, hatred or intolerance. “Racism is a social plague that must be overcome. Doing so via sport is so important,” Laika wrote.
The winning Italian volleyball team featured other Black Italians, as well as Ekaterina Antropova, a Russian who has long played in Italy and was granted Italian citizenship by the government last year.
Targeted for particular ire was the new European Parliamentarian for the xenophobic League party, Roberto Vannacci, who wrote in his 2023 racist manifesto that Egonu’s “somatic traits” weren’t like most Italians — a comment he repeated after Italy’s Olympic victory while nevertheless congratulating Egonu and the team.
“Pink skin lives only in the infantile fantasies of those who were born in another world and stayed there as misfits,” wrote Giulia Zonca in Wednesday’s La Stampa daily.
On Wednesday at the site of the defaced graffiti, passers-by were well aware of the vandalism, and cheered that someone had tried to restore Egonu’s likeness to Laika’s original.
“Honestly I don’t see why anyone would ruin a nice homage to an athlete who brought honor to Italy,” said Irene Cagli. “We are all Italian, each of us is different, each is the same, and it’s beautiful this way.”
The issue also reignited the long-standing debate in Italy over citizenship, given that Egonu – like any child born and raised in Italy to non-Italian parents – had no automatic right to Italian citizenship at birth. She obtained it later, after her parents became Italian.
“We believe that those who are born or are raised in Italy is Italian, and we’ll continue to fight to change the law on citizenship,” said the head of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein.
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