Personal Life
Adams was born in Rotorua, New Zealand, to a Tongan mother (Lilika Ngauamo) and an English father (Sydney "Sid" Adams). Her father, who settled in New Zealand after service in the Royal Navy, had a total of 18 children with five women. Her family is not only notable for its numbers, but also its physical size—her brothers average 2.06 m (6 ft 9 in), and she is the tallest of a set of sisters averaging 1.83 m (6 feet). Her youngest sibling is University of Pittsburgh basketballer Steven Adams (himself 2.13 m/7 feet), and two other brothers played professional basketball in New Zealand.
She was married to Bertrand Vili, a discus thrower from New Caledonia, but divorced him early in 2010. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Adams lives and trains in Switzerland. She has described it as "not great for a social life".
Read more about this topic: Valerie Adams
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Nothing strengthens the judgment and quickens the conscience like individual responsibility. Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one’s self-sovereignty; the right to an equal place, everywhere conceded—a place earned by personal merit, not an artificial attainment by inheritance, wealth, family and position.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn’t matter so much as it seemed to do—it’s not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn’t matter so much.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)