Omar’s Olympic Odyssey III
One of the coolest perks that came along with my job at the Olympics in Athens was my credential. A credential gives media (and other event and arena personnel) access to sporting events, kind of like our tickets into the game. Anyway, since I was positioned on the floor for the gymnastics competition my credential allowed entry into any other event at the Olympics. So one day after work, a few co-workers and I headed out to the gold medal women’s soccer match featuring the United States and Brazil.
The game was important for two reasons: one, it was for all the marbles; and two, because it was the last international championship game for women’s soccer pioneers Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Julie Foudy, Kristine Lilly and Joy Fawcett – the 87’s, named so because they started on the National team in 1987. The crowd wasn’t huge, but it certainly was enthusiastic. Brazil is nuts about soccer, as you’d imagine and the United States had passionate supporters as well. Jennie Finch, the women’s softball star, and NBA hoopster Richard Jefferson were among the famous Olympians in attendance.
The game itself was awesome. The United States led 1-0 until the 73rd minute, when Brazil tied it. It stayed that way until Abby Wambach scored well into overtime(fitting because the 87’s were passing the torch to Abby, the current, but injured star of the national team) – the 117th minute giving the red, white and blue the gold, and at the same time set off a wild and emotional celebration. Before and after the medal ceremony the players, especially the 87’s, waved thanks and goodbye. Their eyes obviously welled with tears. Truth be told, most of us spectators had to fight back tears too. It was a great scene, one of my favorite Olympic memories. HBO captured the moment in the documentary, Dare to Dream: The Story of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team. I was flipping through the channels a couple years ago, saw the feature and ended reliving the experience all over again. I even saw myself in one of the crowd shots. Pretty neat.
That game reminds me of why the Olympics are so great, it brings strangers together to form one common bond. Heck, the friends I went to the game with were Canadian, but they couldn’t help get caught up in the magnitude of what we were watching, and ended up cheering just as loudly as us Americans. Hope you all are enjoying these games, I sure am!
