Celebrating female Olympians

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No shortage of them!

Just watching the amazing Katie Ledecky crushing the opposition over 1500m. What a woman.

And for me - nine Olympic medals, plus getting through the ‘twisties’ and a survivor of sexual abuse by the US coach. Heroine!

I was just coming on to say Ilona Maher who's massively increased the visibility of rugby 7s in the US, but yes - the women's 7s was brilliant 😍😍

Lynsey Sharp.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4JeLO8RCtoQ

She was amazing. Hope she's been properly sponsored for Paris

Angela Carini for standing for the true spirit of the Olympics which the IOC has corrupted.

Yes I do too what a great way to start the day, big thank you

Another shout out for Shriever. I can't wait to watch her again tonight. I loved the interview she did after her race last night. She was buzzing 🙂

Bryony Page on the trampoline. And let's not forget her dissertation on dinosaur sounds...

The GB women's hockey team got off to a pretty terrible start but have shown great grit and determination to come back and qualify for the quarter finals from a really strong pool.

All the women's rugby sevens players, but especially Ilona Maher who is doing so much to be a role model for those taller, stronger girls out there. I've been volunteering at the rugby sevens venue and it did my heart good to see the stadium full of people roaring for women. And all the feminist t shirts!

Loved this. It's not all about the winners.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/aug/02/these-are-the-slowest-fastest-women-on-earth-and-they-all-have-a-story-to-tell

Yaroslava Mahuchikh, world record holder for the high jump and now the Olympic champion. She had to flee her hometown at the start of the war in Ukraine, and has come through so much.

Keely Hodgkinson running an Olympic semifinal like she was taking it easy at her local ParkRun. The last two in the high jump. The peerless Simone Biles. Femke Bol on the anchor leg of the 4x400 absolutely destroying the field. Pauline F-P winning the MTB at a gallop.

Amber Rutter taking the silver in Skeet. A sport I'd never seen before and I signally failed to ever even spot the clay before the women shot them.

She tested positive for COVID-19 so couldn't compete last Olympics.

She gave birth 3 months ago.

Rebecca Downie. Didn’t win a medal in the uneven bars, but after what she went through prior to Tokyo, with her brother dying then not being selected controversially, to still be performing at the highest level of gymnastics at 32 is phenomenal.

Gymnast Oksana Chusovitina - she just missed out on Paris due to injury, but had competed in the previous 8 Olympics, including Tokyo at the age of 45. She was still winning titles earlier this year at the age of 48.

Gymnast Rebeca Andrade. Now the Brazilian with the most Olympic medals ever. As a child she would walk 2 hours to training and has battled severe injuries. Now she's an Olympic gold medalist after winning the women's floor final.

Katie Taylor, Olympic Gold Medallist in Boxing and Irish international football player.
It was thanks to her years of campaigning that women's boxing was included in the London Olympics in 2012, where she won a gold medal.

She would have gone into the history books as the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal for boxing, but for the fact that Nicola Adam's fly-weight fight was scheduled before Katie's lightweight fight - no disrespect to the great Nicola Adams, but it would have been so fitting for Katie Taylor, who carried the fight for recognition of women's boxing for so long, to get the first Olympic Gold.

Beatrice Chebet from Kenya who has just won Gold at 5000m and looks like she has just been out for an afternoon stroll, the speed she found in the last few metres after having run so far already was incredible and then she went around congratulating and helping up all the other competitors. What a woman.

The artistic swimmers. People have no idea how difficult a sport it is. I watched a documentary once where the introduction said it was like doing the 400 metres, while holding your breath and half the time upside down.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2022-11-10/inside-rhythmic-swimming

Some truly inspiring women on this lovely thread.

Keely again! What a final!

I'm a bit behind now!

Dp and I were totally invested in the asymmetric bar final last night and cried out at the sheer brilliance of Kaylia Nemour's gold routine (we know nothing about gymnastics, natch).

Just watched Keeley Hutchinson make it over the line - amazing run.

And the sprint cyclists! What a team ❤️

Cindy Ngamba, first medallist for the refugee team.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cqqll47dvdyo

Thanks for this lovely, inspiring thread, OP.

Agree with pp that said Bryony Page. I'd never watched trampolining before and she gave what looked like an absolute masterclass to the other competitors. Competence porn at its finest 😂