A Dream Come True

It is hard to even know where to start, or how to put everything I am feeling and everything I have experienced over the past day into words, but I am going to do my best. The game last night was such an amazing and enthralling experience. Once again, the stadium was packed with a roaring crowd; I cannot even begin to describe the atmosphere, especially because it seemed as though everybody in the stadium was chanting “Jiāyóu” and cheering us on at times. The noise was just riveting and that is something that you just have to experience yourself to truly understand. Both teams put up a very hard fought battle. At times, we had a little bit more of the momentum, which meant that at other times, we had a tough time keeping the ball and possessing, causing us to defend a lot against a very quick and skillful Brazilian team. Despite both teams having some chances, at the end of 90 minutes, the game was still tied 0-0. We played very solid defense throughout the game, and even managed to gain a little of an attacking momentum going into the overtimes. When we were huddled up to go out to the first half of overtime, we looked over and saw the Brazilian players on the ground, exhausted. Despite being tired ourselves, we got a little more pumped up, looked each other in the eye and just knew in our hearts that we could win. Even in the extra time we spent a lot of time defending, but we made the most of our chances, and got a goal in the 6th minute to go up 1-0. Brazil continued to put us under a lot of pressure and created some chances, and we also missed a few chances to really put the game away, so the final 25 minutes was a real nail biter. It felt like time was passing by so slowly, especially in the final 1 minute of stoppage time. Arm in arm and hand in hand, those of us on the bench eagerly awaited the final whistle. When it finally did blow, we sprinted on the field and celebrated together. Even after running around the field with American flags we were given from the fans and celebrating, it still seemed a bit surreal to us. In fact, we had to tell each other, “We just won Gold!” I think standing on the podium was the first that it really hit me as to what we had achieved. We had to overcome a lot this year. There were many ups and downs along the way, but we never stopped believing in ourselves, and I think that is what really helped to get us on that podium – Belief in ourselves and the Heart and Commitment to put in those extra hours of training and those extremely hard days of training that really paid off in the end. For us, it was an extra special achievement because it was such a collective team effort the whole way through. Standing on the podium with a gold medal around my neck, proudly singing the National Anthem with my teammates is by far my most memorable moment – a dream come true. After such an incredible journey and an extra special moment like this, it is hard not to sit back and reflect upon how lucky we all really are to be given such a tremendous opportunity. And for that, we are all very grateful.
It was so hard to wipe the smiles off our faces last night. At points, it seemed as though our cheeks hurt from grinning from ear to ear for so long. The best part was that we were able to celebrate the achievement with our friends and family right after. So, even though it was very late until the game and all of the media was done, we were so excited to hang out and celebrate some more with everybody who traveled so far to support us over here in China. Despite getting very little sleep, we then had to be up kind of early this morning to take care of some more media commitments as a team and then this evening we went over to the Olympic Green to be on the Today Show and share our gold medal experience with those back home. Now that we are done competing, we are all excited to join in the Olympic festivities and cheer on other teams as they finish up their events. And it is always a little easier to enjoy the experience after when you end with a big win.