Beijing 2008 - Most popular for November 2008
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Abby Wambach underwent a successful surgery Thursday morning to repair the broken tibia and fibula
in her left leg, with a titanium rod inserted to reinforce the tibia. She is expected to begin
rehabilitation in five or six weeks, though it will take much longer than that to reach her former
level of play.
US defender Cat Whitehill will miss the Beijing Olympics after suffering an ACL injury during a
training session in Seoul, Korea, where the US Women's Team is currently competing in the Peace
Queen Cup.
The injury to Abby Wambach was a big blow of course, and they're also missing key players in
Kristine Lilly (pregnant) and Cat Whitehill (ACL). Even without those three, the US are still
looking like one of the teams to beat. Since Pia Sundhage took over as coach last November, the US
have gone from strength to strength.
The Super Falcons are leading force in Africa, but haven't seen much success on the world stage.
They've qualified for every World Cup and the previous two Olympic Games, but they've progressed
beyond the group stages only twice, in 1999 and 2004.
North Korea are making their first Olympic appearance in women's football, but this young squad
includes several members of the side that won the U20 Women's World Cup in 2005. In their six
qualifying matches, they scored 51 goals and conceded none.
Like Norway, Sweden was one of the first countries to actively develop women's football as an
organized sport, but surprisingly, they've never won an Olympic medal. In recent years, the Swedish
Olympic Committee has made significant financial investments in the team, and specifically in
increasing players' physical fitness levels.
The US defeated Brazil for the second time this week, this time at San Diego's Torero Stadium, in
their final match before heading off to Beijing. Once again they managed to secure a 1-0 victory -
this time via an 84th minute taken by Carli Lloyd and headed in by Natasha Kai. Before the match,
most of the hype centred on Abby Wambach, who seemed destined to be one of the stars of the Beijing
Olympics.
Since her appointment as coach last November, Pia Sundhage appears to have taken the US national
team from strength to strength. The Olympics will be the first major championship of her tenure,
and it will be interesting to see how far this team can go. The 18-woman squad includes nine of the
players who won gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
One of the traditional powerhouses of women's football, Norway are no strangers to the medal
podium, having won gold in Sydney 2000 and bronze in Atlanta 96. Lately, though, they've faltered.
Over the next several days, I'll be doing a brief profile of each of the teams participating in
Beijing 2008. First up, the host nation: Historically, the Steel Roses have been the undisputed
leader on the Asian football scene, but they've endured some disappointing results recently - most
notably a 3-0 loss to Japan in February's East Asian Federation championship.
The ladies of the US national team are on a hot streak in the final run-up to the Olympics,
defeating Norway 4-0 and Sweden 1-0 over the weekend in two of their final four warm-up matches for
Beijing. Lindsay Tarpley opened the scoring against Norway after only four minutes, but the US had
to wait until the second half to put the seal on their victory.
