Elise Cranny loved that cross country practice involved running to Dairy Queen. As a middle schooler, she’d grab an ice cream cone with her teammates and jog back to practice.

There was no pressure or high stakes. No worries about hitting times to impress university coaches.

“Running is pretty cool!” she thought to herself at the time.

One year later, Cranny entered her freshman year at Niwot High School, just outside of Boulder, Colo., having never experienced a state championship meet nor won a cross country or track race.

She was just passionate about being on a team.

Even though running looks like an individual sport, cross country uses the placing of a school’s top-five runners to create an overall team score. First place scores one point, second place two, and so on. The team’s combined scores are then added together, and the one with the lowest tally wins.

In the fall of 2010, Cranny had no individual expectations for her first major meet, the 4A Region 2 Cross Country Championships. She just wanted to be a part of a team — all dressed in their emerald green singlets with the letter “N” on the front — that qualified for state.

When the starting gun went off, the sound of nearly 100 runners thundering down a field echoed throughout the small town of Lyons, Colo.

Cranny settled into a comfortable rhythm. She clicked off the kilometers and moved further and further up the pack.

Until, suddenly, with the five-kilometer race coming to a close, she found herself in the lead. Sprinting down the grass field, nine seconds ahead of her next closest competitor, she crossed the line with a mixture of shock and awe.

Combined with her victory, her teammates finished seventh, ninth, 10th and 16th, giving Niwot the regional title and a spot at state.

The race was a whirlwind of emotions. It all came so fast. Success came so fast.

One year earlier, Cranny was spending cross country practice running to Dairy Queen. After the meet, she was a regional champion.

It was the first time Cranny experienced that intoxicating feeling of success.

Cranny loves to spend time with people.

It’s obvious early in our Zoom call, on a late May afternoon, that Cranny is a people person. Two months before the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore., the Nike athlete is in Park City for a training camp with her Bowerman Track Club teammates.

“We live together in groups up here, so it’s fun to live with your teammates,” Cranny says

The team runs together, works out together and socializes together. Aside from getting fit for the upcoming outdoor season, the camp is a bonding experience for a team filled with professional runners from across the world.

“We do team meals, and then maybe we’ll watch a show, play a game — that’s a pretty standard altitude camp,” she says.

Since she graduated from Niwot in 2014, Cranny has developed into one of the most promising American middle distance runners in the country.

She won two cross country state individual titles, and gold in the 800m, 1,600m, and 3,200m track events as a junior and senior in high school. At Stanford University from 2014-18, she was a 12-time All-American, two-time academic All-American and two-time Pac-12 champion.

Last summer, Cranny won the U.S. Olympic trials in the 5,000m and finished 13th in that event at the Olympics in Tokyo.

With half a lap to go in the trials, under record-breaking heat in Oregon, Cranny trailed her Bowerman teammate, Karissa Schweizer, by just a few steps for the lead. Rounding the final corner, Cranny moved up so she was in lockstep with her teammate.

Her arms pumped back and forth like pistons. Her face twisted in pain.

After crossing the line first, Cranny immediately turned back for Schweizer and grabbed her in a hug — realizing that they would both be going to the Olympics. The feeling wasn’t too different from when she won her first regional meet in Colorado all those years ago, and the team was moving on to state.

“After the trials, again, I don’t know, it was kind of just like I was awed and very excited about a dream from a very young age coming true. It was very surreal,” she says.

Her momentum didn’t slow down after the Olympics.

Cranny started the 2022 track season at a blistering pace. She set an American record by running 14:33 in an indoor 5k in February, and one month later, she ran the second-fastest American 10k of all time. This past weekend at the USA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., where Cranny opted out of the 10,000m trials, she ran a 4:25 final mile to hold off teammate Karissa Schweizer and win her second straight U.S. title in the 5,000m with a time of 15:49.15. She’ll try to back that up with another first-place finish at the World Championships beginning July 15, also in Eugene.

Cranny, 26, credits the breakthroughs to getting a taste of being on the sport’s biggest stage, and the solidification of becoming one of the best runners in the world.

“Tokyo was a very eye-opening experience,” Cranny says. “After racing in the final and seeing what it was taking to medal and be top 10, it reignited a whole new passion for me in the sport of like, ‘OK, this is what it takes to be at this level.’”

Early in Cranny’s life, she overlooked the process that gave her so much success.

When success came, she took herself too seriously. She failed to treasure the small moments — such as collecting Silly Bandz with teammates on the bus to meets — in her young track and field career that she now looks back on fondly.

“In high school, I was just super rigid, and I thought you had to do everything super seriously,” she says. “It’s very type A, and I think there’s this balance between being serious, working really hard and having fun with it.”

At the beginning of her freshman year at Stanford, Cranny got stuck in an injury cycle for about two and a half years. She suffered four different bone injuries, and amid that cycle, wondered whether she would be able to continue running.

“Every time you feel like you’re getting back to where you were, that’s when the next [injury] would come,” Cranny says.

“I still wanted to run professionally, but some of that time in the middle was testing, like, ‘OK, can my body handle this?’”

Focusing on the love of the sport, specifically stringing together workouts and socializing with teammates outside of practice, helped Cranny get into a healthy mental state.

“When I had some upperclassmen that were helping me, it’s like, wow. It makes you feel so connected to them,” Cranny says.

In the past couple of years, Cranny has been open about her own struggle with mental health and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), a condition where athletes don’t get enough calories to support the demand of their sport. RED-S can lead to bone injuries, low energy availability and amenorrhea.

She has also partnered with Voice in Sport, an online platform that connects girls and women in sport, to become a mentor for the next generation of athletes.

“I want to be able to hopefully help the people that are coming in learn lessons quicker,” she says.

As she’s gotten older, Cranny has become more observant. She’s gone through a lot for a 26-year-old: a cycle of expectations, success and injuries. It’s hard as a pro athlete, when your life is on display and your job is to run world-class times, to find consistency.

But now, more than ever, Cranny has achieved balance. Rather than putting too much pressure on herself ahead of a race, she’s patient and introspective — eager to learn about other people and lend a helping hand.

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It may seem counterintuitive to tell someone — whose job is to run fast — to slow down. But since the Olympics, Cranny has strengthened that aspect of her life with the help of a sports psychologist.

“Something that he says is, ‘Take what you do seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously,’” she explains.

She got a taste of being on the international stage last summer at Tokyo and is hungry to improve on her world ranking. Her long-term goals include winning a World Championship or an Olympic medal.

“That’s where I want to be, competing for those podium spots at global championships,” she says.

Right before we log off of our Zoom call, we exchange pleasantries, and she remembers that I mentioned that I’m in Alabama for a national track and field meet.

“Good luck this … er, not this weekend…Wednesday, you said?,” she says, catching herself and thinking back to the beginning of our conversation.

The specificity epitomizes who Cranny is.

She’s a regular person, who happens to be faster than most people in the world, and she wants to get it right. She listens and remembers the smallest details — like a date — that others may easily forget. Yes, she has her own practices and races to think about, but Cranny is genuinely interested in the lives of other people.

Josh Kozelj is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports based in Vancouver, B.C. He has written for The New York Times, Globe, Mail, CBC and various other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @joshkozelj27.

After an illustrious career for both club and country, Gotham FC and U.S. Women’s National Team defender Kelley O’Hara announced today via Kelley on the Street that she will be retiring from professional soccer at the end of this year, making the 2024 NWSL season her last.

"I have always said I would play under two conditions: that I still love playing soccer, and if my body would let me do it the way I wanted to," O’Hara told Just Women’s Sports in the lead-up to her retirement announcement. "I realized a while back that I was always going to love it, so it was the physical piece that was going to be the deciding factor."

The 35-year-old will retire as a two-time World Cup champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and at least a two-time NWSL champion, depending on where Gotham finishes this season. Her legacy as a player is hard to fully encapsulate, and will forever run through some of the biggest snapshots in USWNT and NWSL history. 

In 2012, O’Hara played every minute of the USWNT’s Olympic gold medal run, after having recently converted into a defender. Her soaring goal off the bench in the 2015 World Cup semifinal is the stuff of legend. And her return from lingering injury to play in every knockout match of the national team’s 2019 World Cup win cemented a storybook international career. 

It was O’Hara who scored the overtime goal in 2021 to earn the Washington Spirit their first-ever NWSL championship, and O’Hara who returned to help see Gotham earn a title in 2023 after years spent in the trenches with the club’s previous iteration, Sky Blue. Her 15-year career spanned two professional women’s soccer leagues in the U.S. (she earned her first professional title in 2010 with WPS’s FC Gold Pride), as well as sweeping changes to the sport both on and off the pitch.

On the field, O’Hara has always been known for a motor that never quits, making the right flank her domain in attacking possession and defensive transition. In recent years, she’s also been celebrated for a competitive fire that raises the level of her teammates, whether she’s in the starting XI or supporting from the bench.

But injuries take a toll, a reality not always seen by the fans watching from home. "I've never taken anything for granted, and I feel like I've never coasted either," O’Hara said of her late-career success in the NWSL despite battling injuries. "I've always been like, 'I gotta put my best foot forward every single day I step on this field' — which is honestly probably half the reason why I'm having to retire now as opposed to getting a couple more years out of it. I've just grinded hard."

Recently, O’Hara has been sidelined at Gotham with ankle and knee injuries, and the situation motivated her to really prioritize listening to her body. "To get injured and come back, and get injured and come back, and just keep doing it, it really takes a toll on you.

"People don't see the doubt that's associated with injury,” she continued. "As athletes we feel a certain way, we perform a certain way, our body feels a certain way, we're very in tune with our bodies. And there's always so much doubt surrounding injury. It’s like, 'Can I feel the way I felt before?' The reality is sometimes you don't."

O’Hara didn’t arrive at the decision to move on from her playing career lightly. But once she began seriously considering making 2024 her final year during the last NWSL offseason, it felt right. "Once I was like, 'Alright, you know what, this will be my last year,' I have had a lot of peace with it," she said. "Truly the only thing I felt was gratitude for everything that my career has been, all the things I've been able to do and the people I've been able to do it with."

She said she’ll miss daily interactions with her teammates and all the amazing memories they’ve created, though she feels lucky to have formed relationships that go beyond sharing a locker room. "You're basically getting to hang out and just shoot the shit with your best friends every day," she reflected. "Which is so unheard of, and I just feel very lucky to do it for so long."

The Stanford graduate also mentioned that the NWSL’s suspension of regular season play in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic made her realize how much playing allowed her the space to simply be creative every day. The tactical elements of soccer provided O’Hara an outlet for problem solving and made use of her naturally competitive edge.

She’s now gearing up to channel her on-field intensity into her post-playing career full time, which is a new chapter she’s excited to begin. "I don't know if the world's ready for it, like the fact that I'm not going to be putting all of my energy into football all the time," she said with a laugh. 

O’Hara said she would like to stay connected to the game in some fashion, whether it be as an owner, coach, or member of a front office. She’s also interested in the growing media space surrounding women’s sports, having provided on-camera analysis for broadcasters like CBS Sports in addition to starting a production company with her fiancée.

"I just feel like I have a lot of passions, and things that excite me," she says. "And I do want to stay as close as I can to the game, because I feel a responsibility — and I'm not sure in what capacity — to continue to grow it."

A sense of responsibility to grow the game has been a consistent refrain for the USWNT and NWSL players of O’Hara’s era, who ushered in a new age of equal pay for the national team and collectively bargained protections for those in the league. The landscape for new players looks different than it did 14 years ago, in large part due to this pivotal generation.

"I feel an immense sense of pride around that, because I don't know if any of us knew that was gonna happen," she said. "We kind of, as things unfolded, took the next step towards changing what women's football looks like in this country and around the world.

"I'm really grateful to have been part of this era with the players that I was [with], not backing down and pushing and knowing that was the right thing to do."

Whatever the future holds, O’Hara is going ahead full throttle. It’s a piece of advice she’d also give to the next generation of professionals looking to make their own impact.

"Whatever you do in life, do it because you love it, and the chips will fall in place," she said. "If you love something, you're willing to do what it takes. You're willing to make the sacrifices, you're willing to handle the roller coaster.

"To me, it's simple. Don't do it for any other reason but that, and I think you'll be alright."

The Phoenix Mercury center spoke with Robin Roberts about her 10-month incarceration, reflecting on her poor living conditions and shaky mental state ahead of her May 7th memoir.

"The mattress had a huge blood stain on it. I had no soap, no toilet paper," Griner told the ABC News anchor in last night’s 20/20 special. "That was the moment where I just felt less than a human." 

She also detailed some of her lowest moments during that time, saying with tears in her eyes that she went so far as to consider taking her own life on more than one occasion. However, the thought of Russian officials not releasing her body back to her family made her reconsider.

"I just didn't think I could get through what I needed to get through," said Griner.

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In February 2022, Griner was arrested and charged with drug possession and smuggling by a Russian court after Sheremetyevo International Airport police found vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage. The cartridges were prescribed by Griner’s doctor for chronic pain back in Arizona, where medical marijuana is legal. In the interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist said she had a "mental lapse" while packing, and never intended to bring the cannabis products with her when she returned to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg.

"It's just so easy to have a mental lapse," Griner said. "Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn't take away from how that can happen." 

She was later sentenced to nine years behind bars after her Russian attorneys advised her to plead guilty the following July. Griner was then sent to a remote penal colony where she was forced to spend her days cutting cloth to make military uniforms. From there, it only got worse.

"Honestly, it just had to happen," she said when asked about her decision to cut off her signature long locks. "We had spiders above my bed making nests.

"My dreads started to freeze," she added. "They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You've gotta do what you've gotta do to survive."

Shortly after Griner’s initial arrest, the U.S. State Department classified her case as wrongfully detained, escalating its urgency within the government and calling even more attention to the situation. On December 8th, she was freed in a prisoner exchange negotiated by the Biden administration.

While she told Roberts she was "thrilled" when she got the news, she was also very upset about having to leave fellow wrongful detainee Paul Whelan behind. She also continues to carry guilt about her arrest, saying "At the end of the day, it's my fault. And I let everybody down."

Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, hits shelves on May 7th.

"Coming Home begins in a land where my roots developed and is the diary of my heartaches and regrets," Griner told ABC News in an exclusive statement. "But, ultimately, the book is also a story of how my family, my faith, and the support of millions who rallied for my rescue helped me endure a nightmare."

Longtime USWNT fixture Carli Lloyd took to Instagram Wednesday morning to announce that she’s pregnant with her first child. 

"Baby Hollins coming in October 2024!" she wrote. The caption framed a collaged image of baby clothes, an ultrasound photo, and syringes indicating what she described as a "rollercoaster" fertility journey.

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In a Women’s Health story published in tandem with Lloyd’s post, the Fox Sports analyst and correspondent opened up about her struggles with infertility and the lengthy IVF treatments she kept hidden from the public eye.

"Soccer taught me how to work hard, persevere, be resilient, and never give up. I would do whatever it took to prepare, and usually when I prepared, I got results," Lloyd told Women’s Health’s Amanda Lucci. "But I found out that I didn’t know much about this world. I was very naive to think that we wouldn’t have any issues getting pregnant. And so it began."

Lloyd went on to discuss her road to pregnancy in great detail, sharing the highs and lows of the process and expressing gratitude for the care and support her family and medical team provided along the way. She rounded out the piece with a nod toward others navigating the same challenges, encouraging people to share their own pregnancy journeys, painful as they may be.

"My story is currently a happy one, but I know there are other women who are facing challenges in their pregnancy journey. I see you and I understand your pain," she said. "My hope is that more and more women will speak up about this topic, because their stories helped me. I also wish for more resources, funding, and education around fertility treatments. There is much to be done, and I hope I can play a role in helping."

The 41-year-old New Jersey native retired from professional soccer in 2021, closing out her decorated career with 316 international appearances, the second-most in USWNT history, in addition to 134 international goals. A legend on the field, Lloyd walked away from the game with two World Cups, two Olympic gold medals, and two FIFA Player of the Year awards.

On Tuesday, FIFPRO announced the launch of Project ACL, a three-year research initiative designed to address a steep uptick in ACL injuries across women's professional football.

Project ACL is a joint venture between FIFPRO, England’s Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA), Nike, and Leeds Beckett University. While the central case study will focus on England’s top-flight Women's Super League, the findings will be distributed around the world.

ACL tears are between two- and six-times more likely to occur in women footballers than men, according to The Guardian. And with both domestic and international programming on the rise for the women’s game, we’ve seen some of the sport's biggest names moved to the season-ending injury list with ACL-related knocks.

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Soccer superstars like Vivianne Miedema, Beth Mead, Catarina Macario, Marta, and England captain Leah Williamson have all struggled with their ACLs in recent years, though all have since returned to the field. In January, Chelsea and Australia forward Sam Kerr was herself sidelined with the injury, kicking off a year of similar cases across women’s professional leagues. And just yesterday, the Spirit announced defender Anna Heilferty would miss the rest of the NWSL season with a torn ACL. The news comes less than two weeks after Bay FC captain Alex Loera went down with the same injury. 

Project ACL will closely study players in the WSL, monitoring travel, training, and recovery practices to look for trends that could be used to prevent the injury in the future. Availability of sports science and medical resources within individual clubs will be taken into account throughout the process.

ACL injuries in women's football have long outpaced the same injury in the men's game, but resources for specialized prevention and treatment still lag behind. Investment in achieving a deeper, more specialized understanding of the problem should hopefully alleviate the issue both on and off the field.