The US women’s soccer team won the Olympic gold medal in Athens yesterday, beating Brazil in overtime with a score of 2-1 in the championship game. Five veterans on the Olympic team have been credited with bringing women’s soccer to national prominence, as well as inspiring a generation of young female athletes. Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Brandi Chastain, Joy Fawcett, and Kristine Lilly caught the nation’s attention when their team won the first World Cup championship in 1991, reports the Associated Press. Since then they have won two Olympic gold medals and one silver, two World Cup gold medals and two bronzes, and come to epitomize “the golden age in women’s sports,” the Chicago Tribune reports. NBC called these women athletes the “Title IX generation.” The passage of Title IX in 1972 is acknowledged as the most important factor in ensuring increased opportunities for women and girls in sports in the US and abroad. The success of the US women’s soccer team specifically, the oldest in the Olympic tournament, is credited as helping spread the sport to other countries all over the world that look down on women’s participation in sports, according to the Tribune. LEARN MORE about the Feminist Majority Foundation’s effort to protect Title IX DONATE to support FMF’s work to achieve gender equality in education and sports
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