On Tuesday, World Cup and NWSL champion defender Abby Dahlkemper announced that she’d had successful back surgery, in what many hope is the final chapter of a difficult year plagued by injury and absence.

The Wave declined to clarify Dahlkemper’s surgery due to “privacy” reasons, but the second photo in her post appears to show two screws inserted in her spine.

Dahlkemper has made a few stops on her club journey in recent years, going from the North Carolina Courage to Manchester City and then the Houston Dash, before finding a home at NWSL expansion side San Diego Wave. But the team’s captain didn’t get as much time on the field in 2022 as she had hoped for due to various health reasons.

Questions about Dahlkemper’s form have increased in recent years, but lingering injuries have seemed to play a significant role in her ability to execute on the field and her potential to contribute to her NWSL club and the U.S. women’s national team.

We took a look at the entirety of Dahlkemper’s 2022 availability to try to put together a clearer picture of her status, especially ahead of next year’s World Cup.

February 2022

Perhaps signaling the year to come, Dahlkemper’s public issues with her back started at the beginning of 2022. After being called up to the USWNT camp for the SheBelieves Cup in February, she had to withdraw due to a back injury and was replaced by Trinity Rodman.

March-April 2022

Dahlkemper’s most consistent playing time in 2022 came during the early stages of the Challenge Cup through the middle of May. She started all five of San Diego’s Challenge Cup group stage matches and rejoined the USWNT for two April friendlies against Uzbekistan, starting in one match and coming off the bench for 9-1 and 9-0 wins.

A bout with COVID-19 in late April landed Dahlkemper on San Diego’s availability report as “under COVID protocols.” She wrote on her Instagram at the time: “I have unfortunately tested positive for covid. I am so sad to be missing the game tonight but will be cheering from home.”

May 2022

Dahlkemper cleared COVID-19 protocols by San Diego’s May 1 match against Houston but did not play or feature on the bench. She did rejoin the Wave in early May and played in two regular season matches.

In a 4-0 win over Gotham on May 7, Dahlkemper had to leave the match in the 35th minute with what appeared to be a non-contact injury, after the broadcast showed San Diego trainers tending to her back and neck. She walked off the pitch under her own power, and head coach Casey Stoney said that the team was dedicating the win to the defender. She did not play in the team’s next match, a 2-1 win over the Chicago Red Stars on May 15.

On May 18, Dahlkemper played a full 90 minutes in San Diego’s 1-0 loss to Racing Louisville, but her passing completion dipped to 63.9 percent, a season-low to date.

Dahlkemper then fractured her ribs prior to the team’s next match. On Instagram, Dahlkemper wrote about the frustration of taking another step-back: “2022 has already been a year full of adversity for me, but throughout the trials it has allowed me to realize the pure joy and happiness playing soccer with my teammates brings me.”

She continued, “Although I’m so sad to face another setback, I am more determined than ever to get back on the field as soon as possible. I love this club and I love this city and I can’t wait to be back.”

July-August 2022

Dahlkemper’s rib injury sidelined her throughout the month of June, but she returned to NWSL play in July despite missing out on the USWNT’s roster for both June friendlies and the Concacaf W Championship.

She started all four of San Diego’s matches in July and was frequently paired with Kaleigh Rhiel in the absence of Naomi Girma, who was away on international duty for much of the month. Dahlkemper played 90 minutes in all but the last match of July, a 1-0 win over the Chicago Red Stars in which she was paired with Girma. She left that match in the 58th minute after being ejected for a second yellow card on a tackle.

When asked about Dahlkemper’s possible return after serving her one-game suspension on August 7, Stoney told the media, “Abby is our captain, so she becomes available next week, but she needs to fight for her shirt now, just like any player. She knows that and she wants to work hard to get back with the team.”

The manager also noted her captain’s essential presence in the locker room and her satisfaction with Rhiel (who on Thursday signed a contract extension with the club through 2024).

Dahlkemper was available off the bench for the rest of the month of August but didn’t see the pitch.

September 2022

Dahlkemper’s final two games of the year came in September. She played a full 90 minutes alongside Girma in San Diego’s 1-0 win over Angel City FC on Sept. 17. On Sept. 25, she started against the Orlando Pride.

In the 20th minute of that match, the defender appeared to hit her breaking point. Similar to her exit from the match in May, Dahlkemper sat down early in the game despite no contact, holding her back and unable to continue. Riehl subbed in at the 23rd minute and closed out the regular season alongside Girma.

October 2022

After Stoney told the media in October that Dahlkemper was “100 percent out,” the 29-year-old was finally given a Season-Ending Injury designation on Oct. 15, the day before the club’s first-ever playoff game against the Chicago Red Stars.

On Oct. 29, after San Diego’s season ended in a semifinal loss to the Portland Thorns, Dahlkemper made another announcement on her Instagram: “I wanted to firstly say how appreciative I am to be a part of such an incredible club in the San Diego Wave. With that being said, personally this year has been disappointing in terms of my health and availability … With the advice of doctors and for the longevity of my soccer career and livelihood post soccer I have decided to undergo a procedure on my back.”

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune in July, Dahlkemper said the bouts of adversity would not stop her “from getting back on the field and playing soccer and kind of doing what I love.” She also commented on her potential return to the USWNT but wouldn’t go so far as to say she is hopeful of returning for the 2023 World Cup.

“Obviously the first thing is I need to get back on the field and be able to play and compete,” she said. “I have a lot of respect for Vlatko, and I know he really values performance in the league and your ability to play well on your club team. That’s just important for me. I’m just trying focus on what I can control, and that’s health to a certain extent and being able to give my best to the team here, the Wave.”

Andonovski reiterated that sentiment earlier this month.

“We’re just hoping everything goes well,” he said. “Once she has the surgery we’re going to know more precisely what the return for her is going to be.”

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, at a White House ceremony this afternoon. 

The Team USA standout is the most decorated women’s swimmer in the sport’s history. In addition to her seven Olympic golds, she’s also won a total of 21 gold medals at the World Championships, the most of any swimmer regardless of gender. 

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The esteemed award recognizes those who have "made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors," according to a White House press briefing. 

Ledecky is one of 19 medal recipients chosen by the Biden administration this year. She joins a class that spans the worlds of politics, sports, film, human rights, religion, and science. Her fellow 2024 awardees include Everything Everywhere All at Once actress Michelle Yeoh, pioneering Hispanic astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa, and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, plus posthumous winners Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the US, and assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. 

Olympic gymnast Simone Biles and USWNT legend Megan Rapinoe were among 2022’s class of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients. Biles and Rapinoe were the fifth and sixth women athletes to be given the honor, making Ledecky the seventh.

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.