The United States women’s national team will not be playing for gold after losing to Canada 1-0 in the Olympic semifinal on Monday. Canada eked past the USWNT on a VAR-reviewed penalty, defeating the U.S. for the first time in 20 years.

The national team’s lackluster semifinal performance against Canada was indicative of their play all tournament.

“I feel like we haven’t had our joy,” Megan Rapinoe said after the loss.

Attention now turns to coach Vlatko Andonovski, who came into the tournament unbeaten during his year and half as the USWNT head coach. A pre-tournament New York Times profile even referred to him as “The Coach Who Can’t Lose.” But in his first real test at the helm of the USWNT, Andonovski’s squad drastically underperformed, leaving the new coach exposed to some heavy (and legitimate) criticism.

Here are the three questions Andonovski will have to answer after the Tokyo Olympics.

1. Was the roster too old? 

Andonovski’s decision-making first faced scrutiny after the final Tokyo roster was announced in June. The Olympic squad relied heavily on an aging veteran core, with 17 of the 18 players a part of the 2019 World Cup-winning team. The average age of the team was 30 years old. Detractors immediately questioned Andonovski’s commitment to experience and his reluctance to include new talent, especially in a tournament as physically grueling as the Olympics.

Lynn Williams, who was initially named to the Tokyo roster as an alternate, only joined the full team after the International Olympic Committee approved the expansion of soccer rosters to 22 players. The North Carolina Courage striker proved to be one of the only bright spots in the USWNT’s attack, notching a goal and an assist in the quarterfinal against the Netherlands. Had the Olympic organizers not granted roster expansion, Williams wouldn’t have even taken the field in Tokyo.

Williams started her second game in a row against Canada, an implicit admission of error in Andonovski’s initial scouting.

GOAL, #USWNT! What a turn of events in Tokyo! Lynn Williams gives the US the lead after getting the assist on the equalizing goal a bit earlier! #TokyoOlympics | 🇳🇱 1-2 🇺🇸pic.twitter.com/UJ59y29pP9

— The Equalizer (@EqualizerSoccer) July 30, 2021

2.  Why was the USWNT’s subbing such a mess?

Andonovski’s rotation of players also drew consistent criticism throughout the tournament. The coach sometimes opted for wholesale line changes, swapping out the front three of Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath and Lynn Williams for Carli Lloyd, Christen Press and Megan Rapinoe in the 60^th minute of Monday’s semifinal, even as Williams was starting to create chances. The hockey-like line changes up top also left a struggling midfield sub-less until the 80^th minute, when Sam Mewis finally checked into the game against Canada.

Andonovski’s rotation cycles added to questions of chemistry, attacking consistency and continuity, as the USWNT never seemed to find its rhythm.

Many observers, us included, were clamoring for Press and Williams to play up top together. The two wingers are key to the USWNT’s high press and ability to stretch opponents’ backlines. But Williams and Press never took the pitch together, leaving an opportunity to overload Canada’s defense unexploited.

a concept: press and williams at the SAME time

— Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) August 2, 2021

3. What happened to the offensive innovation?

With Andonovski’s hire came the promise of new and innovative offensive tactics. There was a lot of talk leading up to the Olympics about a sophisticated offensive approach, a deviation from the USWNT’s more direct style of play. That promise, however, never came to fruition. The United States was shut out of three games in their five Olympic contests, and the team’s attack never fully clicked.

Part of the issue stemmed from a disjointed midfield that failed to facilitate offensive chances. Against Canada, the USWNT’s first shot on goal didn’t come until the 65th minute.

NWSL Analitica pointed to another shortcoming: The USWNT relied too heavily on its flanks. Most of the team’s chances came from frantic crosses into the box that didn’t connect with any runners.

Some crosses pic.twitter.com/hjmT43qucK

— NWSL Analitica (@NwslAnalitica) August 2, 2021

Andonovski will surely have to address the breakdown of the team’s offense and the lack of strong build-up play through the midfield after the tournament.

Whether or not Andonovski remains in the hot seat may be determined by the team’s performance in the upcoming bronze-medal match. A loss could add to the mounting pressure on the USWNT coach, while a win may buy him some time.

The USWNT will face Australia on Thursday for a spot on the Olympic podium.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.

USWNT regulars Sophia Smith and Mallory Swanson furthered their cases for Olympic inclusion with their respective club victories on Saturday and Sunday.

After a roller coaster of a week that saw former Thorns head coach Mike Norris reassigned and a flurry of last-minute roster reshufflings as Friday's trade window closure loomed, the NWSL sprung to life over the weekend with standout performances from ninth-place Portland and third-place Chicago, among others.

After her blocked attempt at goal set up a volleying sixth-minute opener from veteran Christine Sinclair — now the only player in history to record a goal in all 11 NWSL seasons — Smith swiftly netted her own in the 27th minute off a breakaway run that eluded Houston's backline. The goal represented Smith's third of the season as well as her 35th for the Thorns, ultimately leading to the home side's first win of the season in a 4-1 routing of the Dash.

But that wasn't Smith's only stat of the evening. The star forward also lapped former Chicago Red Star Sam Kerr to become the youngest player to reach 50 NWSL goal contributions across all games, chalking up 40 goals and 10 assists at the age of 23 years and 254 days.

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"Obviously it feels good to get a win," said Smith in a post-match press conference. "But this is the standard the Thorns have always had. So a win is great, but a win is the expectation — we're hungrier than ever after the way we started."

170 miles up the road, Lumen Field similarly showcased some promising Olympic prospect footwork on Sunday. In Chicago's 2-1 victory over the lagging 13th-place Seattle Reign, striker Mallory Swanson racked up an impressive counterattack assist on fellow forward Ally Schlegel's fourth-minute goal. Swanson went on to find the back of the net herself before halftime, lacing an explosive ball into the top corner in the 31st minute, her second of the season after returning from a lengthy sidelining injury.

Speaking of injuries, fellow USWNT favorites Alex Morgan and Tierna Davidson were not as fortunate as their national squad teammates this weekend. Each exited their club matches early, Morgan with an ankle knock in San Diego's loss to Orlando and Davidson with an apparent hamstring incident early on in Washington's win over Gotham.

LSU came out on top at the 2024 NCAA women's gymnastics championship in Fort Worth on Saturday, besting Cal, Utah, and Florida to capture their first-ever title.

The Tigers' win was far from a landslide. LSU took the first rotation handily thanks to 2024 All-Around winner Haleigh Bryant's team-leading 9.9375 backed by four additional 9.9+ scores from her teammates. But Utah then responded with three strong beam performances of their own, causing the Red Rocks to slide confidently into second place by the end of the second rotation.

By the halfway point, all four teams fell within .288 points of one another before Utah overtook the pack with a dominant floor showing after three rotations. LSU then went on to ace the beam event with Konnor McClain's meet-leading 9.9625 score, coming away with the highest collective score ever awarded to the event in NCAA championship history. The achievement propelled the Tigers to victory, ensuring them the title after the final rotation.

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"This team is full of individuals that have incredible character and integrity and love for each other and all the things you hear from coaches when they sit at a podium like this in a moment of victory, but I promise you it's a real thing," said LSU coach Jay Clark in a post-meet press conference. "I'm just so happy for them."

Contributing to Saturday's atmosphere of excitement was the absence of last year's champion and this year's heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners. Hot off earning the highest team score in NCAA history just last month, the top-ranked Norman squad suffered a shocking loss in the semifinals, where five major mistakes contributed to a third-place finish and a season-low team score of 196.6625.

With Oklahoma out, it was truly anyone's game.

"Every team was out there fighting for their lives — all four teams, it could have gone any of four ways out there," Clark told reporters. "As much as I feel for what happened to Oklahoma in the semifinals, I think it made for a championship that became so packed with emotion because every team out there believed they could do it. It was just tremendous."

LSU is now the eighth program in the sport's history to earn an NCAA women's gymnastic championship.
They share the honor with Georgia, Utah, UCLA, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Michigan.

Cameron Brink already has her rookie of the year pick for the upcoming WNBA season, and it’s Indiana-bound star Caitlin Clark. 

In the latest edition of Kelley on the Street, host Kelley O'Hara caught up with Brink in New York hours before the Stanford phenom went No. 2 overall to the Los Angeles Sparks at the 2024 WNBA Draft. When O’Hara asked who would win the WNBA's rookie of the year, she answered without pause.

"Caitlin Clark," she said, while a fan commented that she thought Brink would take home the award. Brink later added that the extra foul granted to WNBA players will be "good for me."

"I hope it’s me," Charisma Osborne, who was later drafted by the Phoenix Mercury, said when asked her ROY prediction. "But, I don’t know — we’ll see."

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