The Just Women’s Sports podcast has featured plenty of stars since its July 2020 debut, with host Kelley O’Hara of the USWNT talking to some of the world’s biggest athletes about the secrets behind their success.

Season four of the Just Women’s Sports podcast launches this week, making now a good time to catch up on the highlights from the first 32 episodes. While every episode has its share of behind-the-scenes moments and unexpected revelations, below is a guide to some of the most compelling moments on the Just Women’s Sports podcast so far:

Best behind the scenes scoop: Nneka Ogwumike talks WNBA bubble

Nneka Ogwumike stopped by the Just Women’s Sports podcast back in December 2020, giving listeners a behind-the-scenes look into how the WNBA bubble came to fruition. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t easy.

As the WNBA Players Association President, Ogwumike was a part of every conversation. Only months after signing a historic CBA, Ogwumike had to help re-configure a season on the fly.

“It was a hot mess,” she tells O’Hara, “and I mean that in the most respectful way.”

As the country was still adapting to its new normal amidst Covid, “No one knew what they were doing,” Ogwumike remembers. The WNBA star says trying to forecast the trajectory of the pandemic while also planning for a safe season was one of the most challenging things she has ever been a part of.

“Professionally speaking, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” Ogwumike concedes. “We were able to piece it together however we could.”

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The players had two objectives going into the bubble: the first was to be compensated fairly, and the second was to harness their platform for social advocacy work in the wake of both George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders.

“Going in, a non-negotiable for us was amplifying our voices,” Ogwumike says. “We knew we wanted to dedicate the season to Breonna Taylor.”

Ogwumike said conversations with Michelle Obama, Tamika Palmer, Stacey Abrams and Rev. Warnock allowed the players to focus on their mission while still playing basketball. The season ended up being one of the most successful of the quarantine era among all sports, with the WNBA being heralded for its display of unity and purpose.

“Us being able to do all that on the fly while playing games was remarkable, and I am really proud of everybody.”

Biggest Game-changing moment: Allyson Felix’s fight for athlete moms

Motherhood in sport is starting to be more widely discussed, acknowledged, and understood, thanks in large part to the likes of Allyson Felix.

Felix made waves in 2018 when she took her fight for maternity coverage with then sponsor, Nike, public. The move shifted how motherhood and pregnancy are adapted and accounted for in sports.

The track star stopped by the JWS podcast in October 2020 to talk about her preeclampsia diagnosis and giving birth to daughter Camryn one month early via emergency C-section.

“I knew statistics about Black women giving birth and having far greater complications,” said Felix, “I just never saw myself in that position.”

“My mind wasn’t prepared for everything that I went through”

Her daughter, Camryn was in the NICU for the first month of her life; Felix remembers being by her side 24/7 during that period. According to Felix, getting back on the track left her mind, and all that mattered was her daughter’s survival.

During her pregnancy, Felix was also re-negotiating her contract with Nike. Her then-sponsor was proposing a significant, 70% pay cut. But what ultimately inspired Felix to speak out was Nike’s refusal to provide her with maternity coverage. If she couldn’t have it written into her contract as one of the world’s most decorated track athletes, who could?

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“The piece that I wasn’t willing to budge on was around maternal protection in contracts,” said Felix. “It wasn’t enough for them just for them to put it in for me — this needed to happen for everyone.”

Felix eventually left Nike for the company’s failure to include protections for mothers and moved to Athleta, where she says she now has a seat at the table. Supporting her role as a mother, advocate and athlete, Felix calls her partnership with Athleta an “authentic fit.”

Sweetest friendship story: Nastia Liukin on competing and re-uniting with Shawn Johnson East

Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson captured national attention during the 2008 Summer Olympics as two of the most promising gymnasts the U.S. had seen in years. Both teens were at the top of their game, but there could only be one all-around champion. Liukin came out on top, capturing individual gold in the sport’s most coveted event, spurring a media storm that pitted the two teammates against each other.

“We went 1, 2 and that was the first the U.S. had ever done that,” Liukin explained to O’Hara. To make matters worse, after capturing gold and silver, Liukin and Johnson still had to compete against each other in individual events and were bunking together in the Olympic village.

“We were fine being roommates — we were actually really good friends just that happened to have the same exact goal.” That all changed after Liukin took all-around gold in Beijing.

“We tried really hard — I would say we tried our best, we supported each other through the rest of the competition.”

However, after the athletes came back to America, the media circus that followed whipped up a rivalry between the two gymnasts that included sponsors, fan speculation, and management woes.

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“It felt like the world just started pitting us against each other in every single aspect — it was 10 times worse than leading up to the Olympics.”

The two didn’t speak for eight years after the Games, with the stalemate finally ending in serendipitous fashion. Liukin remembers being in New York speaking with a New York Times reporter when he asked if she would be invited to Johnson’s upcoming wedding to Andrew East. Liukin stalled. Then, in a strange twist of fate, Liukin got a message on her phone as the interviewer briefly left the room — it was from Johnson. The two set a time to reunite, and the rest is history.

“I still remember this moment so clearly,” said Liukin, “she walked in and we both started crying.”

Liukin ended up attending Johnson’s wedding and is now a godmother to her former teammate’s child.

Most inspiring comeback story: Mal Pugh on being cut from the USWNT

Mallory Pugh’s December 2020 episode of the JWS podcast is particularly timely as the star striker formally re-enters the USWNT conversation for the team’s fall friendlies. After being left off the Tokyo Olympic roster, the 23-year-old was invited to join the U.S. camp for the squad’s international series against Paraguay.

Pugh’s meteoric rise to soccer stardom was cemented at the 2016 Olympics, when she became the youngest player in U.S. history to score at the Olympics at 18 years old. Since then, the phenom has struggled to live up to the child prodigy label bestowed on her in her early career.

The most significant hurdle came in 2020, when Pugh was left off Vlatko Andonovski’s Olympic qualifying lineup, the first time the striker had ever been excluded from a USWNT roster.

“It was pretty rough, but I am a strong, strong believer of everything happens for a reason,” Pugh told O’Hara of the ordeal. Pugh went on to say that she felt she needed the setback, calling it “the thing that’s going to light a fire.”

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“I just had this deep sense like I knew I was going to be okay,” she said, adding, “I wasn’t like, ‘Oh my gosh this is the end.’ In fact, I was like, ‘No. This is the beginning.’”

Pugh’s positive outlook seems to have paid off, entering back into the USWNT fold for the Midwest fall series and ahead of the 2023 World Cup cycle.

Check out these episodes and more on the Just Women’s Sports podcast, and be sure to subscribe today!

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.