Chloe Logarzo plays as a midfielder for both the Australian national team and Bristol City of the FA Women’s Super League. 

This is your first season playing in FAWSL. How has the experience been so far? 

It’s definitely been challenging. I think my thought process behind coming to Bristol was needing to get as many games as possible in before the Olympics. And obviously at the start of the year, which was the end of last season, everything kind of hit. So I guess my plans were kind of overturned. I wasn’t actually meant to be here for as long as I have been, but you know some things don’t always go to plan. I’ve just tried to take it one step at a time, but it’s definitely been challenging having the sort of the season that we had and being in England through lockdowns and being here for a lot longer than I thought I would be.

What led you to sign with Bristol city in particular? I know you mentioned just getting touches and more experience and play under your belt. But what about this team in particular?

So the coach is an Australian coach. She has actually watched me play in the W-League back home in Australia. It was just an easy transition for me to head from Australia into what I would say is a style that I would be comfortable with from an Australian coach.

I’m sure that’s made the transition on the field a little bit easier. 

Definitely. Tanya [Helen Oxtoby] has been over here for such a long time now, when I first had my first call with her, I actually had to ask her if she was Australian because the English accent was so strong. But yeah, I also came over because I knew it was going to be a challenge for me. I came knowing that the team was going to get relegated last year or in a position to get relegated. So I think for me personally, I thought it was an individual challenge for me to come over to a club and try and help them not get relegated.

And we were successful last year. I ended up coming over and we won one game before the lockdown happened and the season ended. And that was the crucial point that we needed to stay above getting relegated. And I think that’s still a challenge for me now. The club is doing all that it can, and I’m just working individually on myself and looking forward to the Olympics coming up next year. And I think that the players surrounding me are amazing people, and I’m lucky to have the people that I do around me.

How would you compare the playing style in FAWSL vs the NWSL? 

I would say that it’s definitely not as athletic. I think the NWSL is super athletic. Every single person is there at the highest level and competing with professional athletes on and off the field, and I commend the NWSL for that. Here I feel like it’s so brutal. Everyone is just out there and they’ll smash you. And sometimes it is about the physicality, where I think the physicality in the U.S. is different than over here.

It’s hard. It really is hard and there’s some incredible players. Lots of Man City and Chelsea players and such at the top, top level. But it’s definitely physical over here. And then I also think there’s a difference in terms of marking, where the NWSL is just so good. Here, you don’t really hear much about FAWSL games. I know the league is still growing, and this could probably be the best league in the world. It should be. But it’s still so far behind in terms of picking up the bottom half of the teams and pushing them to be better. There’s such a divide between the top and the bottom.

I know that Bristol City is closer to the bottom of the rankings currently. What do you think needs to happen to turn things around?

Yeah, I just think it’s been a difficult start for Bristol coming up against really good teams. For us it’s about just finding our stride and having confidence, especially after our first three games against some of the top teams and leaving those games feeling absolutely defeated.

Now it’s about how we pick ourselves up and work together as a team and collaborate to be able to play well against the middle rank and the bottom rank teams, so we can get confidence back in the girls and build from there. It’s just about belief for me.

I wanted to transition into talking about the national team. The Matildas [Australia’s national team] just hired Tony Gustavsson as the new head coach.What was your reaction to that hire and have you been in contact?

We are extremely excited to have a national team coach announced. We’ve waited a long time for this, and we’re excited to have someone that’s going to be there for a while for the upcoming Olympics and World Cup cycle. It’s been a long time since we’ve had consistency like this. And I think now having the World Cup at home, we’re just really excited to get the ball rolling and finally be able to get into our endeavors and get ready for the Olympics and get ready for that.

It’s been exciting. We’ve had one Zoom call, and it was nice, just a quick introduction. He told us to just stay focused on our seasons over here as we wait for a time when we can have a camp, which unfortunately we weren’t able to schedule during this last international window due to the current climate.

You mentioned Australia co-hosting the 2023 World Cup, but what does that mean to you and for the team?

For me, it’s exciting to be able to play any game in front of your friends and your family, and to make your country proud and to be able to host the World Cup. It’s something that I didn’t think in my lifetime, I’d be able to do at home. I think the Matildas are the most beloved team within Australia, male or female, so on a personal level, I can’t wait for 2023. And as a Matildas team, I think it’s been a long time coming, and it’s going to change the way that sports are perceived within Australia. And I hope that we are able to leave a legacy for young kids within Australia that want to strive to be the best that they can be, whether it’s on the field or off the field, or just being the best at life. Hopefully we are able to inspire just the next generation.

I’m sure also not having to travel is also going to be a huge advantage? 

Oh yeah, for sure. It’ll be interesting to see everyone come to Australia. I feel like we’ve gotten so used to flying everywhere that a 12, 24 hour flight seems quick. So it’ll be interesting to see how different teams adapt to flying and adapt to the culture that we have and the climate. I think it will be a great World Cup, honestly. I think Australia is the perfect place to host such an event and yeah, it’s going to be an amazing, amazing time.

That’s awesome. What do you think needs to happen to put the team in championship contention?

I think it’s what we’ve been doing over the last couple of years, honestly. It’s just a slow tug toward getting to the next level and onto the podium. We don’t like making excuses, but we’ve just had an unfortunate run with national team coaches and not being able to have a consistent lead going into a major tournament. Before our last World Cup, we had a new coach appointed, and then two years before that, before our last Olympic campaign, I’m pretty sure we had a new coach.

So it’s just before major tournaments we haven’t really been the most prepared leading into them. I think that we did as good as we possibly could, but I think that there’s one or two things or pieces missing from our puzzle that hopefully we’ll be able to get into place for this World Cup. And I think, honestly, we were so close up in France, and it was just so disheartening to lose on penalties again. But I think we’re so close. We can see it and we’re gripping it. We just need that final piece.

Lastly, what are your personal goals for this upcoming year? 

My personal goals are just to be consistent. I kind of say it all the time, but if I’m consistent in my own individual playing style, I think that would help me. But obviously with the Olympics coming up, I would like to be as ready as I possibly can. So, getting myself on the score sheet and getting myself on the fit and small goals like that.

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.