No single image is more closely linked with the birth of the "Gibson Girl" than The champion by Charles Dana Gibson. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Gibson's illustrations for magazines like Life and Collier's defined a new American ideal: confident, witty, and independent women. The champion became one of the most widely reproduced images in Gibson's career, sparking debates about the changing roles of women in society.

Its popularity was such that, in 1901, a critic in The New York Times remarked, "Gibson's girls have become the heroines of our age, and none more so than the champion herself." The scene captures a tall, poised woman, tennis racket in hand, standing victorious at the net. Her posture is relaxed yet commanding, chin lifted, eyes bright with self-assurance—she is the undisputed champion, both of the court and of her own destiny. Around her, defeated male opponents look on in a mixture of admiration and disbelief, their slumped shoulders and discarded rackets underscoring the reversal of traditional gender expectations.

The crisp whites of her dress and the sunlight glinting off the racket emphasize her modernity, while the subtle humor of the composition recalls the wit of Honoré Daumier's social satires. Unlike earlier depictions of women in sport, which often emphasized fragility, Gibson's heroine is athletic and unapologetically triumphant. As with many of Gibson's works, the exact date and medium of The champion remain uncertain, though it was likely created as a pen-and-ink drawing for magazine publication around the turn of the century. The original may have been lost, but the image survives in countless reproductions and anthologies of Gibson's art.

The champion stands as a key example of his influence on American visual culture and the evolving image of women in the early 1900s. Today, it is often cited in exhibitions and scholarship on the Gibson Girl, though its original whereabouts are unknown. Its legacy endures in the ongoing conversation about gender, sport, and representation in art.