Molly McElwee on ‘Building Champions’ in women’s sport

Molly McElwee will be sharing her career in journalism and book ‘Building Champions: Paths to Success in Women’s Tennis’ during her hour-long talk at the Gibraltar Literary Festival. Molly told Features Editor Gabriella Ramagge about sharing women’s stories focusing on sport. Molly will also be taking part in this year’s Literary Festival schools programme.

What can the audience expect from your Literary Festival talk?

It's a Q&A, so I'll be in conversation with Jonathan Scott, which I'm really excited about. I've spoken to him a few times over the years and actually did work experience with him back in the day. We'll mostly be talking about what it was like for me to write the book, my kind of process, any interesting stories that came out of the various interviews I did for the book and what it takes to write a story in the way I did by speaking to a lot of people familiar with the topic, people in tennis, people who are experts in sports psychology and sports business. Hopefully it will be interesting to people and people will get a sense of what the book is about, what I was trying to achieve by telling these stories of so many pretty incredible female athletes across tennis.

In a nutshell describe your book ‘Building Champions: Paths to Success in Women’s Tennis’?

With Building Champions, I wanted to show just how varied the journeys of some of the greatest women tennis players of the last 20 years have been. The book maps out the remarkable blueprints followed by winning players from across the globe, as told by those in their inner circle, and explores what this generation of women can tell us about the future of the game.

Your Substack is called ‘But Do You Actually Like Sport?’, after a question you have often faced in your career as a sports writer. Are attitudes changing towards women in sport and why is it so important to recognise women’s success as you have done in your book?

It's a question I cannot tell you how many times I've been asked. It's always been quite bizarre to me when I say I'm a sports journalist, so many times people are like ‘no, but do you actually like sport?’ I'm like, well, it's a very tough business to get into, but also to stay in if you don't like it, it would be a weird choice anyway. I've spoken to a lot of male colleagues and I've asked them, have you ever been asked this? And none of them have ever been asked this question. I think it is rooted in people's surprise and people's lack of awareness, and I mean, it's hard to say lack of awareness in 2025.

But yes, people's surprise that a woman would choose to dedicate their life to kind of reporting across sport. I think attitudes are always changing and improving towards women in sport. The key thing for me that I've seen over the last seven or eight years, and what I'd like to continue to see more of is for there to be more women in these spaces, be it as the press officers in charge of different teams, be it the writers themselves, obviously journalists themselves, presenters and journalists on television as well reporting on sport.

But also the editors, the people behind the scenes who are making the decisions about what gets reported on, I think is really important too. And maybe it's something that goes a bit under the radar. Because editors and people behind papers and also behind the TV productions that make the editorial decisions around what sport gets played, or gets shown, and how we report on things is so important to shaping the news cycle in every way.

If you don't have enough women in those spaces, I think things won't change at the rate they need to.

What are some of the highlights of your career?
That's a tricky question. For me, always the thing that I go back to and the thing that I love to do is interviews, getting to sit down and interview some of the most kind of high profile people in sport, who I've looked up to. I've just watched from afar and just been in awe for what they can do on the pitch or on the court, but also what they represent off the court too.

People like Rafael Nadal, or Billie Jean King, Andy Murray, Barbora Kojicova was the Wimbledon champion, I interviewed her earlier this year and I absolutely loved to hear more about her experience. Other highlights, I'm in a really privileged position where I get to go to a lot of sporting events and contests. Watching the Lionesses win the Euro final at Wembley that was for me a real life highlight. It was incredible to see nearly 90,000 people show up for women's football that day, and for the Lionesses to pull it off. They've gone on to achieve so much since, but that felt like it was huge moment for women's sport as a whole.

How does it feel to be part of this year’s Literary Festival and present your book at home in Gibraltar?
It's incredible to be able to come home and to be a part of this festival, which I've heard so much about, but unfortunately, I've not had the chance to attend before. I'm really excited to be able to attend and to be able to present my book, it would be a chance for me to maybe tell friends and family a bit more about it.

You also form part of the school’s programme, what words of advice do you have for the younger generation?
When it comes to journalism and sports journalism, I always say to people going into the industry to be keen, put your hand up, say yes to things and push yourself out of your comfort zone. I think that can apply to most industries, really. But in my industry, I've found that being enthusiastic, showing an interest, being curious are the key components that get you respect from people around you, but also get you opportunities as well.

If I would have said no to things that I thought maybe I wasn't quite ready for, that I didn't have enough experience to do, I would have missed out on so much. Always say yes to things that interest you and excite you, and the rest usually comes. The other advice I'd say is to recognise the importance of relationships and the relationships you build with colleagues and people within your industry.

It's something that Billie Jean King says herself, she says relationships are everything. She said that about her tennis career, about building the WTA as a whole, and forever changing the way that women are perceived in sport. But she's also said it since retiring as a player and going into business and succeeding in having a huge impact on the world of sports. Relationships are everything and never underestimate the value of taking the time to nurture those relationships with the people around you in your chosen field.