Elizabeth Price is a retired gymnast who competed on the US national team as an alternate for the 2012 Olympics and at Stanford University. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in design engineering at Harvard. At Stanford, Price won national championships in the vault and the uneven bars. Below, she spoke to Just Women’s Sports about her career as an elite gymnast, her experience with the national team, and the necessary changes the sport is undergoing. 

A lot of gymnasts start at a very young age. Was that true for you and how did you get introduced to the sport? 

Yes. I started when I was three. My mom put me in the sport because she said I had too much energy and she just needed me to do something. It ended up being gymnastics. My parents have no gymnastics background whatsoever. But both my parents would drive past this gym on the way to work when I was little and my mom saw little kids running in and out so she decided to stop by. It was gymnastics, so she was like, “Perfect!” She signed me up for a class, and the rest is history. I was six when I started competing at meets around Pennsylvania where I grew up when, and then each year I’d move up a level and start competing in more competitions, and traveling to more places.

I read that you were homeschooled most of your childhood to focus on training for elite gymnastics. At such a young age, what was it like to dedicate yourself to a sport like that? 

I was twelve, going into seventh grade when I started homeschooling because that was also the year when I became an elite gymnast. My coaches saw a lot of potential in me before then and really actually wanted me to start homeschooling earlier so I could spend more time in the gym. But it was my parents who wanted me to wait a little bit longer. Once I qualified as an elite, I stopped going to school and became homeschooled. From then on, I spent 40 hours a week in the gym until I graduated high school.

Does becoming an elite gymnast mean that you’re basically on track to competing with the Olympic team at some point?

Yeah, it’s definitely the track for the National Team and the Olympics. You can’t go to the Olympics unless you’re on the national team, so that’s the ultimate goal. But the first goal if you want to make it to the Olympics is becoming an elite gymnast.

Was there ever a point in your childhood to early teenage years that you questioned your love of the sport? 

There were things that I didn’t like that I had to do to be as good as I was. For example, I didn’t want to be homeschooled. I loved going to school as a kid so that was a huge sacrifice for me. And then even when I was younger practices were longer. Even then it was like, oh I can’t go trick-or-treating. That’s not a big deal, but to a nine year old that was a big deal. So little things like that that I really missed out on. Birthday parties, vacations, that kind of stuff. Around the time I was maybe eleven or twelve, that’s when the competitions and the training required more focus, dedication, and effort on my part. That is when gymnastics became something I was really dedicating myself to, as opposed to something that I did and just happened to be really good at.

What was your go-to event?

So I competed in all four events throughout my entire gymnastics career. Most girls before college compete in all four. However, my strongest events were floor and uneven bars. And I would say bars are my favorite, for sure.

You were a member of the US Senior National Team in 2012 and an alternate for the 2012 Olympics. What was that experience like?

I don’t think I really saw myself as going to the Olympics, ever. Not that I didn’t think that I was good enough, but as a kid, you see the people at the Olympics, and those are the best in the world. And I never personally never thought of myself as one of the best in the world. Yes, I thought I was competing with the best, I was holding my own. But I never really saw myself as being able to go out there and be one of the best in the world. At least not until I was at Olympic trials.

I don’t think I realized that I had the potential to really make an Olympic team until that meet. I didn’t have confidence in myself before then. Even if I’d go out there and win every event, I still wouldn’t think that I was one of the best. But the year of the trials was one of my best years ever. I was super consistent and doing really well. I ended up finishing fourth at the Olympic trials. I mean, it really doesn’t get much better than that. Obviously that was a huge accomplishment to finish so high and qualify for an alternate spot on the team. But it was also huge for me personally because that was the moment when I realized oh wow, I’m definitely able to go out there and be one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world one day.

Five gymnasts compete in the Olympics. You placed fourth in the Trials. So how come they didn’t choose a top-5 performer from the trials for the team?

So the only person who’s guaranteed a spot on the Olympic team is the person who finishes first at trials. All of the other spots are selected individually. And in 2012 they took the first place person, who I’m pretty sure was Gabby Douglas, and then they took the second and third place person, the fifth place person, and the seventh place person. In the Olympics, not everyone gets to compete in every event. There’s strategy in picking the team. You want the five people who would get the top three scores on each event. So it’s more than just taking the five best all around gymnastics. So even though I competed in all of the events, if I was to end up selected, it would have been for either floor, bars or the vault.

Were you surprised to not have been selected?

After the meet was over and I was sitting in fourth place, I definitely thought I was going to be selected as one of the five people to compete. But at the same time, I wasn’t really sure, because I knew I was right on the edge. The people who placed above me were stronger all around gymnasts, and the people who placed below me were stronger on individual events. Of course, I would’ve loved to have been part of the five who got to compete, but also being selected as an alternate is a huge accomplishment. I mean, how many people get to say that they were part of an Olympic team at all? So I was very proud of myself and definitely happy with what I got in the end.

You retired from elite gymnastics in 2014 before heading to Stanford. Is it common for athletes to choose between competing in college and with the national team? 

Very few people do both. If anything, if you still want to do elite gymnastics, people might take off a semester or something to train for the national team. But like I said earlier, elite gymnastics requires 40 hours a week of training. And I could not do that and compete for Stanford at the same time, on top of the academics.

How did you feel when you retired from elite gymnastics? Was it a sense of relief or was it more excitement about this new chapter?

I was very excited about what was coming next, because at the end of my elite career I had accomplished everything that I wanted to. I didn’t necessarily compete at World Championships or compete at the Olympics, but those were never my specific goals. I wanted to make the national team and just be the best gymnast that I could be, and I felt that I had proven to myself that I was stronger than I thought. I had gotten everything I would receive from elite gymnastics, and so I was very excited to head to Stanford and see what it had to offer.

Right away, your freshman year, you win the NCAA vault title. How do you feel like that set expectations for the rest of your Stanford career?

I had high expectations for myself going in. But college gymnastics is much different than everything else. The judging is different, the routine structure is different, and I wasn’t sure how I would compare to the other athletes and their routines. So going out there and being able to win an NCAA title my freshman year was super reassuring and obviously a great accomplishment. Especially as a freshman who was new to the whole college scene, so it was pretty awesome.

What makes the competition different in college? 

Aspects of it were easier. For example, in college you can’t train more than 20 hours. So obviously there goes half of my training time. Additionally, in the elite you’re basically trying to do the hardest possible skills you can and make them look pretty decent. In college you’re not necessarily trying to do the hardest skills. You’re trying to do medium difficulty skills but make them look absolutely perfect. And that was basically the difference. You’re really focusing on trying to get the perfect 10, which is different in elite scoring because in elite scoring you can’t really get a 10. As you just add harder skills, the scores go higher and higher and higher. There’s really no limit to the scoring, so that’s the biggest difference.

What did it mean for you to end your gymnastics career as An NCAA champion?

It was more than I could’ve asked for. Knowing it was going to be my last competition, my main goal was just to go out there and hit four solid routines and do as good as I possibly could. But I did even better than that because I scored a 10 at nationals, which never even crossed my mind as being a possibility. I’m like, you’re at nationals, there’s even more judges, they’re doing everything they can to find everything wrong with your routine. So the fact that I scored a perfect 10 at nationals at my last competition was just the cherry on top. All the hard work, all the hours I put in my whole life, and especially in college and all of the injuries I endured — everything was worth it.

How did you deal with the transition out of gymnastics when you graduated?

Starting when I was a kid, I wanted to be an engineer. Before I knew I was going to do college gymnastics or be an elite gymnast, I knew I wanted to be an engineer. So throughout my college experience, I always saw the end of gymnastics coming. I knew exactly when it was coming, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do afterwards, so the transition was pretty natural. Although gymnastics was the biggest part of my life, it wasn’t my life. I’ve always wanted to do other things, and I just happened to spend a lot of my time doing gymnastics along the way.

I wanted to transition to more current events. Athletes have been at the forefront of the social justice conversation this year. What are your thoughts on the importance of athletes using their platform to speak up on these issues? 

I personally think it’s absolutely amazing to see athletes stepping up and using their platforms to bring attention to these really important matters. Especially because so often the general public use athletes as these perfect beings that are so far removed from social issues. But I think it’s really important to see these athletes step up and be saying something and using their platform, because it lets people know that everyone is attached to this. No one is unaffected by what’s going on.

Obviously a big storyline in the gymnastics world the past few years has been all the coaching abuse scandals. What’s been your perspective on these changing dynamics within the sport? 

It’s difficult to analyze a lot of what goes on right now, because gymnastics is a sport that involves athletes that are very young, much younger than other sports. Most gymnasts start when they’re like five years old, and all their careers are done before they’re 22. It is really important to analyze exactly what the coaching structure is because all of the athletes, as great as we are, we’re still only children and have most of our lives to live after our sport is over. It’s not something we get to do forever, so I think it’s great to see the change that’s coming to the sport of gymnastics with regards to how people treat coaching, how coaches are treating athletes, and how everyone’s making sure that accountability is being placed on the people whose jobs it is to take care of the athletes.

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.