2008 Olympic Pictures   August 25th   Well it has been very difficult to keep up with my blog in the last week or so. I apologize I have been trying to enjoy our gold medal victory!!! A lot has happened since my last entry. We beat Canada so we played Japan and I would like to give Japan a lot of credit. They are a very technical team but we scored a lot of goals and beat them 4-0. It was amazing going out there and feeling confident. We have been the underdogs going into this tournament especially after our first game again Norway but our backs were against the wall and we have been taking it one game at a time and believing in each other. We couldn’t have been any happier to beat Japan knowing that we were going to the finals of the Olympics! No matter what we were getting a medal.      It’s been exciting being in the village, but I must admit it is a little overwhelming at times. I bought a little fold up bike so I wouldn’t have to walk around everywhere. It’s so cute and was the best $50 investment I have made this trip. About 8 people on our team got bikes and we had a lot of fun with them. I wanted to bring mine home and was going to until we folded it up and realized it was impossible since I already was traveling home with 3 suitcases. We all left our bikes to our liaison, Bean-Bean. I haven’t mentioned Bean-Bean much but she is awesome and we have had so much fun with her. Her English name is Sherry but she likes beans so that’s why she gave herself the nickname Bean-Bean. We are all going to miss her very dearly. Bean-Bean and I were best friends!   Brazil time. There is a lot of history between Brazil and the USA and a lot of attention has been on us not being able to compete with them and many people out there didn’t think we were going to get a gold medal. I disagreed and I believed in every single person on this team and knew that we could win this game. We were all fired up and ready to empty the tank for 1 more game. So far I have played every minute in this Olympics and I must say that I feel stronger each game. I felt a little more tired in the semi-final vs. Japan though.   I have been shopping and hanging out in the village and trying to rest as much as I can before the Brazil game. I am more determined than ever and I am ready to fight and fight as hard as I ever have this tournament. Walking out onto the field and seeing the 50,000 some people was truly amazing. The whistle blew and it all began. It was not an easy game. We all got beat up during the game and definitely felt the aftermath the next few days after the game. It went scoreless in regulation. I found a burst of energy and got the ball from Lauren Cheney flicked it behind my legs to ARod, where it got poked out and I took a touch knowing that this touch had to be perfect and beat the one defender and boom, left footed shot, GOAL! I went nuts. That is the most amazing goal I have ever scored in my career. I was so happy and made sure I ran over to Pia and hugged her and thanked her. If it weren’t for her this team would have never gotten as far as it did. I have never wanted to win so badly for a coach before.   We had just 25 more minutes to hold onto our 1-0 lead. It was hard, very hard. My legs were tired but I had to keep fighting, keep winning head balls and tackling hard. Our team believed in one another and I will never forget this adventure I have had this Olympics. Brazil was getting frustrated but they kept the pressure on and had a lot of corner kicks and it was getting scary at times but our defense and Hope played amazing. The whistle blew! We did it. We were gold medalists. I couldn’t believe it. I will never ever begin to explain to someone that feeling. I almost felt like I was in a dream. I asked someone did we really just win? I was so exhausted but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered at that moment just hugging my teammates, coaching staff and running around cheering. We just made history, we just won without our star forward, without Cat and Leslie and finally showed the world that you don’t need superstars to win you just need an entire team to believe in each other. We did this because we were united and we fought hard. I have never wanted to win something so bad in my life and I am so happy that I can look back and say to myself I gave it everything I had every single game. I have no regrets.    Standing on that podium receiving the gold medal is a memory I will cherish forever.  I have worked so hard my entire life but most importantly I have sacrificed and took my work ethic to a new level in these past 5 years. It brought tears to my eyes when they started playing the National Anthem. I just thought of all the sacrifices I have made to be where I am at. All of the grueling fitness I have had to go through and all of the family functions I have missed and said to myself it was all worth it for this very special moment. I couldn’t stop smiling and it was contagious throughout our team. This team has gone through so much in the last year and it felt amazing winning something this big.     I am so lucky to have my wonderful boyfriend Brian who hasn’t stopped supporting me and who has never complained once about the dream I am living. He has believed in me from the start and is so happy for me and I am just glad I can share this special moment with him. I wouldn’t have been able to live my dream if it weren’t for his support. Soccer has come first in my life but Brian understands 100%.   My family has been my rock and has carved the path in my life and my soccer career. I love them all very dearly and thank them so much for everything they have done. I am not home very often but I know my sister and brother understand and when we are home we always have a good time together. I have missed so many birthdays, fathers’ days, mothers’ days, holidays, funerals and my family knows how upsetting that is to me but they have always understood. I will now have some time to visit my cousins and my aunts and uncle. They are my biggest fans.   No one will ever understand the magnitude of my trainer James Galanis and our relationship and his job with me. I don’t think James has slept at all this month because he was always trying to make sure I was mentally prepared and kept reminding me to believe in myself and remain confident. You see this isn’t just a job on the soccer field. That is the easy part. The hardest part is the mental side of things and with China ’s time difference all I can say is there were a lot of 2 am phone calls that he had to wait up for. We have something special together and if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be where I am today. I needed him more than ever this Olympics and I guess it has obviously paid off. One day we will write a book together about our journey and it will be a great story. I have had the pleasure of becoming close with his wife and 2 little boys who are absolutely adorable.    My friends and fans have been awesome and I am excited to spend some time with them when I get home.    This has all been such an incredible journey. After the Brazil game I had to get a drug test and it took me 3 hours to obtain a urine sample. That was not fun. I wanted to shower and celebrate with my team but it was ok. I finally met up with the family and friends at the USA house. I was exhausted by the time I got there and still felt like all of this was a dream. It was incredible that I scored the goal but more importantly we won a gold medal and that is the most important thing. I didn’t go to bed until 5am that night and we all had to be up at 9am to do media and interviews. It was a long day of interviews but I got to be on NBC and the today show. This was a huge turning point for this team. By the end of the night I was exhausted and just hung out and went to bed. I had so many texts/emails that my phone got messed up and deleted my entire inbox. Maybe there was too much traffic going into my phone!    I got to sleep in the next day and shopped at Nike town which was exciting. We all got invited to an NBC party which was a lot of fun. I got to meet Vince Vaughn and David Beckham. They are both very nice. These last few days I have been operating on little sleep so hopefully when I get home I can get some rest.. That is wishful thinking! I was able to go to the men’s gold medal basketball game and that was a very exciting game. It was a close game and a great experience to see Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Carmello Anthony, Dwayne Wade, Jason Kidd and some other players play live.    We did not get to be in the opening ceremonies but we went to the closing ceremonies and it was fantastic. The torch went out and just like that the 2008 Olympics came to and end. I am so ready to come home. I have been away from my house since July 22nd. I am sure my entire room is filled with mail that I have to sort through which I am not looking forward too. It has been an incredible journey, one I will never forget. This team made history and this 2008 Olympic team will forever be remembered. I enjoyed every moment of it. I am excited to come home relax, put the feet up and maybe even get down to the beach and soak in some rays. I hope that you all realize what this team has done and what this team has accomplished. It truly is amazing!!   I want to thank everyone who came to the airport to welcome my arrival home! It really meant a lot to see all my delran fans, family and friends!

August 17th It’s very hard living out of a suitcase for almost an entire month let alone changing hotels every few days. It has been hard to sit down and take the time out to write in my blog. We played very well against New Zealand and beat them 4-0. It was a fun game to play in and we played good soccer. We knew going in that we had to win and knew it was possible for us to go first in our group and soon enough we found out that Japan beat Norway 2-0 which meant that we would go as the number one seed. What an incredible feeling knowing that we were headed to Shanghai instead of Tiajin to play Canada in the Quarterfinals of the Olympics. We were all so pumped.    The next morning we took off for Shanghai and once we landed in Shanghai I relaxed for the remainder of the day. We trained the next day and I got to go into Shanghai , which we were already familiar with from the World Cup, and went pearl shopping. I grabbed some nice gifts for my family. It’s a great deal buying pearls in China .    Our game against Canada was such a crazy game. It was over a 4 hour game due to the thunder and lightning. The game started off great as we were up 1-0 and then we were called into the locker room because the lightning was practically on top of us.   We waited and waited, listened to music, stayed dry and hung out.  The rain delay was about an hour and forty five minutes. We finally went back out onto the field and Canada ended up scoring to tie it up. We stayed composed and kept fighting and boy did we have to fight hard and long. We ended up going into 30 more minutes of over time. Luckily we came away with a goal in the over time period so we didn’t have to go into a shootout. Now we are headed to Beijing where we will be staying in the Olympic Village. I am very excited to get to the village and grasp the Olympic experience. We play Japan in the Semi-Finals. After our long match against Canada we were up late and had to get up early the next morning to fly to Beijing . It has been trains, planes and automobiles.   It was amazing arriving in Beijing and walking around the Olympic atmosphere. We got on the bus and drove to the Olympic Village. You really don’t know what it is like until you actually experience it but it’s almost like its own unique world. Everything is very secure and there are apartments all over the place where the athletes stay and they have decorated the outside with their flags. There are many athletes walking, jogging, biking and hanging out. There is a huge cafeteria where you can find whatever you want to eat. There are buses that run through the village and arcade, T.V. and internet rooms. I have been interacting with some of the other athletes and enjoy talking to them about their competitions. I have met some water polo, track, swimming and gymnastic athletes most of whom are from USA and I have been trying to keep up with all the Live Olympic coverage. I went and bought some stuff at the merchandise store and walked around and checked everything out. It is a lot of walking since it is so big and everything is scattered. We are in our own section with other soccer teams and the rooms are suites that hold seven people. I am in my own room in the suite but there is one room that has three beds and one room that has two beds and two single rooms. I have been trying to recover from our long and tough match against Canada and making sure my legs are ready to go against Japan . Our USA team has a building where the United States Olympic Committee is located for all the USA athletes who need massages, any treatment, internet or any valuable information. It is truly amazing what goes into all of this.   I am having a great time here in the village. We had to take a bus to Beijing Normal University where we trained and had lunch over there too. The food is delicious there. I did a few ice baths today. I am an ice bath freak. I have done and ice bath practically every single day I have been here in China . I live by them and feel that my body feels a million times better by plunging in the ice cold water up to my stomach. I am a big advocate for taking care of my body and this is what it takes for me to perform at my best.

August 12th What a successful game we just played to beat New Zealand 4-0.  Everyone played so well tonight.  We knew we had to win but we also knew it was possible for Japan to beat Norway and that would mean we would go first in our group.  After we finished the game we were given the news and everyone was just so excited. Its funny how things didn’t go our way in the first game, but we continued to work harder and now our win against New Zealand and the other scores of the games put us in a good postion in our group.  We face Canada in the Quarterfinals in Shanghai and have to win in order to make it to the Semi-finals.  I am very excited to play and will continue to work as hard as I can.
August 11th    Sorry I have been hiding the last few days since my last entry. I have been busy with our games and yesterday we traveled from Qinhuangdao to Shenyang by train. It was only a two our train ride. Unfortunately we lost to Norway in our first game 2-0, but in our second game against Japan we were fired up and we regrouped to beat them 1-0. I scored my first Olympics goal in a very crucial match. It was very exciting and I am just so happy we won. I haven’t really been doing anything exciting to exciting since the games have started.  I am in 100 percent focus mode now. I must say we have gotten to see two of the men’s Olympic soccer matches. The first one we went to was Italy vs. Honduras . Italy won 3-0. I enjoyed watching the game, as I always try to learn from watching men play.   Heather Mitts and I did something fun for our second game against Japan . We got a manicure and pedicure the day of our game and the guy who was doing our pedicures gave us two temporary tattoos so Heather and I decided to put them on for the game. We both put them on our right legs. I didn’t think anyone would have been able to see it during the game but there were some photos of my sliding and celebrating after my goal and you can see it. It was fun and the tattoos meant good luck.     When we arrived in Shenyang we got settled into our rooms, relaxed and took some fun photos in the hotel lobby with big soccer balls before heading out to the Brazil vs. New Zealand game. Brazil won 5-0 and Ronaldinho scored two goals. This was quite an experience because I was able to watch Ronaldinho play live for the first time in my life and he is one of my favorite players to watch. I loved the game, just watching Ronaldinho do his thing on the field is so entertaining and fun to watch. I was able to see him in the hotel as they were leaving for their game because they are in the same hotel we are in. I wanted to get a picture with him but it was too hard at that moment. But I was on a mission to get his autograph and picture taken with him. We ended up seeing him down in the lobby when they got back from their game but it was still impossible to get through the crowd of people to get a picture with him. But we weren’t giving up. We finally found Ronaldinho, we got to meet him, get pictures and autographs. Ronaldinho was very nice and it made my day getting a picture with him. It was definitely worth the waiting around to try and find him. We also met Anderson who plays for Manchester United, Pato who plays for AC Milan and Marcelinho who plays for Real Madrid. It was really cool we were able to meet them!   We had our training today in preparation for New Zealand . Practice went well. It was raining pretty hard today but I like playing in the rain when it’s not cold. We must win and I know we can do it. We are all excited to play in the new stadium. It is one of the nicest stadiums I have ever played in so I am really excited. I have been preparing for the game and making sure I am ready to go-hydrated, stretched, and mentally preparing. Our game in at 7:45am Eastern Standard time on August 12th.
August 6th Well you never think you are going to go down 2-0 in the first 5 minutes of a game and losing a key player from a collision but it happened and we had to deal with it.  It was an off day, there wasn’t one particular problem that caused us to lose to Norway. It was our first game without Abby and we haven’t played a game without her yet this year.  We are confident we can win and now need to win these next two games.  We will be able to bounce back from the Norway game.  I am putting the game behind me and have changed my focus to Japan.  We cannot change what happend against Norway.  We are all looking forward to playing against Japan.
August 5th Well I am sorry folks that I do not have that much exciting stuff going on here in China. All I can say is that today was our pre-game training session before our first match of the Olympics and I couldn’t be any happier. We have been training for around 2 weeks now and we are all ready! This is it, this is what we have been training for the last 8 months. It has been very hot here and I am so grateful that we are playing our games in the evening. I will make sure I am hydrated, stretched out and getting my mind to think about our game tomorrow.     August 4th We had training in the stadium today but we only had exactly 45 minutes to be on the field. It is a very nice stadium and I am getting extremely excited to play our first game. After we trained in the stadium we walked to the other practice fields near by and continued our training. We are all really excited to play. I have just been stretching, hydrating, and relaxing and watching some movies. People do not realize that we have a lot of time on our hands during these trips.       August 3rd Today is our day off and it is well needed! We have been training hard and yesterday was a very hot day. I sweat out about 5 pounds of water. We have a trip to the Great Wall today which is right by the water. This section is known as the Dragon Head which is the eastern starting point of the Great Wall of Ming Dynasty and the only estuary for the Great Wall in different dynasties. This was built during the year of Hongwu and Wanli (1590s) by famous generals such as Qi Jiguang, Xuda and others. It has 28 tourist attractions and composes of Ninghai City, the City Stone Wall Extending to Sea. I enjoyed getting some background on the Great Wall.    August 2nd It has been very clear in Qinhuangdao, so clear that you can see the mountains and clouds. We had another training session and more dragon flies came out. Luckily they don’t run into us. We had a surprise team outing today and it was an hour foot massage! It was incredible and so relaxing. We all closed our eyes, relaxed and enjoyed our hour long foot massage. Can you believe it was only $5 a person? That’s one of the best things about China, aside from DVDs. It’s been amazing being apart of the Olympics so far. You have no idea how big this is until you are apart of it. The security, the venues, the volunteers is just unbelievable. I haven’t even experienced the village yet with all the other athletes. Growing up I have always watched the Olympics. I would get chills down my arms when I would watch events and watch athletes break world records, and now I am an Olympian as well. Every now and again I pinch myself and tell myself I am at the Olympics right now. It is surreal.      August 1st  Well it’s been around 10 days since I left my house on July 22nd. I feel like I have been gone longer than that but that’s how it feels when you are on the road for the USA women’s national team. Let me just say that we have a A LOT of free time, which I love. I love relaxing and watching movies or reading a book or going on the internet. Once the games start the days will start to go a little faster. Today we had training in the morning and once again we had dragon flies on our field. They love to come out when we are practicing. Some Chinese people say that they come out when it’s going to rain. Training has been good. We are all just ready to play our first game. I am super pumped and cannot wait! We had a weight lifting session in the afternoon and we had to do some exercises by the beach which was pretty nice. This beach isn’t quite like the NJ shore. I think the NJ shore has come a long way and has cleaned up very nicely. We had a very nice surprise at dinner tonight…..BURGERS! They were so good.    July 31st  I can’t believe July is almost over. This entire year has flown by and our first game for the Olympics is in 6 days! How crazy. This is what we have all been training for the entire year and we all want to get this gold medal more than anything. I am so excited and cannot wait to play. I have never wanted anything so badly in my life than to be apart of the Olympics and win a gold medal. But I have to just start thinking about our first game against Norway and focus on that game for now. We have off today which will be nice to relax the legs and mind. We were supposed to go see the start of The Great Wall, which was on the water, but it is raining out so we will go on our next day off. I was very excited to go see that but it wouldn’t be fun in the rain. I am looking forward to just relaxing in my room and making sure my legs are recovered for tomorrow.    July 30th Today is our scrimmage against China, which will be good to play and get some minutes in a game scenario. We tied China 0-0, but did some good things through the game. It was very hot and the field was very small but it was really good for us to get a game under our belt before the first game. We are still getting used to the time difference, food, and humidity. I am glad we came over here two weeks a head of time to get acclimated to everything. I played 90 minutes and was very tired but it felt good to get another 90 minute game in.      July 29th Today we trained in the morning and we had another great training session. Our team is really coming together and I think everything is going to fall into place when we start the games. We are all very excited. Everyone here in china have been so helpful and really bend over backwards to do anything they can to help us. Nothing too exciting has been going on over here in China. We are just preparing for our games and tomorrow we have a closed door scrimmage against China.       July 28th     We trained today in the afternoon so we had the morning to ourselves. I have just been relaxing, surfing the web and just hanging out in my room, reading or watching movies. I am pretty close to being acclimated to China time but still feel a little tired when I get up. It definitely takes a while to get adjusted. Training was really good. It is still pretty hot here, so hydrating is going to be very important. I have been losing a few pounds of water every time at training.    July 27th Today was our last day at Beijing Normal University. We had training in the morning and then we packed up and departed to our first venue. We took the train from the Beijing Railway System to Qinhuangdao. We have never taken a train ride as a team, but I have taken train rides many times and I enjoy it. It was two hour train ride which wasn’t long at all. When we arrived in Qinhuangdao we had to check in at the Beijing Olympic Committee to get acreditidated. After we did that we checked into our hotel and had one of the biggest greetings ever by the hotel staff and Olympic Committee. It was amazing. Being at the Olympics is a totally different feeling than being apart of a World Cup. It truly is amazing. I am having a great time here and can’t wait till our first game on August 6th. The hotel rooms are very nice and we are right on the beach. It makes me feel as if I am still at the Jersey shore. I am loving it! But I will have to give up my tanning time at the beach so I have as much energy during practices and games.    July 26th Well I finally got around to writing about my trip since I arrived here in Beijing, China. I have been a bit jet lagged. I left my house on July 22 at 4:30am to go to the Philadelphia airport. My boyfriend drove me to the airport that morning and I thank him for having to get up at 4am to drive me there, even though he drove past my terminal! I was flying from Philadelphia to San Francisco to join the team for team processing. I fell asleep for the entire plane ride. I have become a pro sleeper on planes these days considering I spend most my time on a plane, hotel or a bus. I arrived in San Francisco with a few other people and we checked in at San Jose State University where we would be staying for the night. We all stayed in dorms, which brought me back to the good old college days. I had lunch and we waited for the rest of the team to arrive so we could go through the team processing.    Once the team arrived we all went through team processing which was really cool. We all got shopping carts in an organized fashion we lined up behind one another and collected and tried on all our Nike Olympic gear. By the time I finished collecting all the gear my whole cart was filled. We got socks, shoes, shorts, shirts and more. It was definitely a very cool experience and I was starting to get very excited to leave for the Olympics. We had a short meeting with the USOC, which is the United States Olympic Committee. They went over a few more things before we were departing for China and after the meeting we went back to the dorms and had to repack with the clothes we got and the clothes we brought ourselves. I had some stuff shipped home that I did not need. I ate dinner after I was done packing and then went to Target to get some last minute items and then headed to bed.    The next morning on Thursday the 23rd we left for Beijing. It was a 13 hour flight and I would say that it was a very smooth flight. I slept the first four hours and then the last couple hours. This has been my sixth time going to china so the long flight is becoming more and more routine. We finally landed around 2:30pm. There is a 12 hour time difference from China to the East Coast. It was very hot when we landed. We collected our baggage and headed to Beijing Normal University where we would be staying for three nights. When we got to the hotel we had some meetings with the USOC committee and then we went for a walk to loosen up our legs a bit. The food is delicious here! We have our own American chefs here for us. I fell asleep at 8:30pm and slept ok throughout the night, but it would have been better if I stayed awake a little longer.      On Friday the 24th we went to The Forbidden City which is somewhat considered like the White House in our country. It was really cool to walk around see it. It was extremely hot and very hazy out. I was completely drenched in sweat when we were walking around. We walked around for about two hours. We are definitely getting used to the humidly here. After we got back form sightseeing we went back to the University and hung out for a while and then had a lifting session.    On Saturday the 25th we took a trip to The Great Wall of china. It was amazing and a great workout. I think this was the best thing I have ever seen in my life. We had two hours to walk around and again I was sweating pretty badly. This time I was more prepared and packed a lighter book bag and wore a tank top. The steps were very steep but I walked as far as I could until they sectioned it off.  It was a pretty good amount of walking.