Berkleigh Wright Reacts to SI Swimsuit’s ‘Empowering’ Class of 2025 Athletes

The 2024 rookie is excited to discover who else will grace the pages of the annual issue.

Berkleigh Wright / Jason Sean Weiss/BFA.com

This month, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit has slowly started to roll out a few of the new names and faces that will grace the pages of the 2025 issue. The high-powered group that posed in Boca Raton, Fla. is composed of 10 current professional athletes, who span the realm of women’s sports (from gymnastics to Para swimming to basketball).

The individual announcements have been met with great excitement and anticipation from athletes, fans and fellow SI Swimsuit models alike. Last night, on the red carpet at SI Swimsuit and Maybelline’s Dante Beverly Hills event, 2024 brand rookie Berkleigh Wright took the opportunity to share her thoughts on the news.

“It’s so empowering to see these women—who I’ve already been following for so long—shine and have their moment,” she explains to the team on the red carpet. As a 2024 rookie herself, Wright understands the feeling of receiving a call from the brand—being asked to grace the pages of the annual issue. The former Denver Broncos cheerleader was a co-winner of the 2023 Swim Search, the brand’s annual open-casting call. As such, she traveled to Belize for her debut feature this past year—and what a feature it was.

Berkleigh Wright was photographed by Derek Kettela in Belize. Swimsuit by Lybethras Swim. Shorts by Mira Mikati. / Derek Kettela/Sports Illustrated

For Wright, it’s not simply a matter of admiring the women themselves (though that is certainly an important part of it). It’s also a matter of how these latest additions bolster the SI Swimsuit family. “Every single person that SI brings into this family makes you more and more proud to already be a part of it,” she explains.

Wright certainly does take pride in her membership in the “family.” For her, an SI Swimsuit debut wasn’t just a chance to break into modeling, it was an opportunity to come into her own more fully. Becoming a rookie “helped me come out of my shell and also just like realize my potential and everything else that I wanted to do,” she shares. In other words, she recognizes the momentum that such an opportunity can bring in your career or otherwise. And she’s looking forward to discovering the rest of the talent who will grace the pages of the 2025 issue—and have the chance to bolster their careers in much the same way she did.

“I just can’t wait to see all of the other surprises that they bring in this year because you never know what they have under their sleeves,” she says. “They’re just always making such big strides in everything they do. I’m pumped.”