Olympic athletes often don't get paid to do anything other than look good. In that vein, Attractive Olympians handicaps which athletes may rake in endorsement deals after the Olympics.
Hope Solo has been on the U.S. Women's National Team since 2000 and went to the 2004 Athens Olympics as an alternate on the gold-medal winning team, but she is probably best known for her controversial statements during the Women's World Cup in China last year. Going into the semifinals against Brazil, Solo had recorded three consecutive shutouts and was becoming a breakout star on the team. That's when coach Greg Ryan benched her for 36-year-old Briana Scurry. The U.S. lost 4-0, snapping a 51-game unbeaten streak, and an angry Solo stated that starting Scurry was the "wrong decision" after the game. (Ryan's contract was not renewed.)
Back in the starting spot after a lengthy fallout, Solo will return to China this summer as the American women try for a return to the gold medal podium. The 26-year-old goalie from Washington once recorded 1,054 straight minutes without a goal allowed for the national team, and she's clearly the best female goalkeeper in the country -- and maybe the world.
Oh, and she's kinda hot, too. How hot? You decide. After the jump, peruse more photos, analyze data, and vote in FanHouse's Attractive Olympian poll.
Greg Ryan lost his job today as the U.S. women's national soccer coach, less than a month after his controversial decision to bench goalie Hope Solo and his team's subsequent meltdown against Brazil.
U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati made the announcement, and he said he will be part of a three-person committee (along with Mia Hamm and U.S. Soccer's secretary general, Dan Flynn) that will determine the next coach for Team USA, which needs to regroup for the Olympics next year.
Gulati said there was no specific incident that led to the decision not to bring Ryan back, but everyone knows the loss to Brazil was the final nail in Ryan's coffin. There was no hope that he could continue to coach Team USA after that.
But she hasn't been banished for good, and when Team USA begins a three-game series with Mexico in St. Louis on Saturday, Solo will be on the roster. It's not clear whether Ryan will pick Solo or the woman she was benched for, Briana Scurry, in St. Louis, but presumably both of them will get some playing time against Mexico, either in St. Louis Saturday or in one of the following games, in Portland and Albuquerque.
This is a magnanimous gesture from Ryan, but it's also the only move he could make if he wants to salvage his own reputation. As much as Solo was criticized for her comments about Ryan and Scurry, Ryan was criticized more for benching Solo in the first place. He won't be Team USA's coach for much longer, and at least he's not going out holding a grudge.
Everyone who thought the tumultuous last few days for the U.S. women's national team would result in a listless performance against Norway in the third-place game was wrong. Team USA beat Norway 4-1 behind Abby Wambach's two goals.
Wambach scored in the 30th and 47th minutes, and when Lori Chalupny and Heather O'Reilly added goals at the 58 and 60-minute marks, it was 4-0 USA. Obviously, the American women came to play.
But it seems extraordinarily unlikely that today's performance is enough to save the job of coach Greg Ryan, who has been widely criticized for his decision to bench goalie Hope Solo in favor of Briana Scurry prior to Team USA's 4-0 loss to Brazil. Ryan's contract expires at the end of the year, and someone else will almost certainly be coaching the Americans when they return to China for the Olympics.
Goalkeeper Hope Solo was benched for the U.S. women's national team's loss to Brazil in the World Cup semifinals, but she hasn't been benched for the third-place game. That's because "benched" would suggest that she's actually going to be there, sitting on the bench.
In reality, she won't even be in the stadium. Coach Greg Ryan announced that Briana Scurry will start again, and Solo will not be there.
"We have moved forward with 20 players who have stood by each other, who have battled for each other," Ryan said on Saturday. "And when the hard times came -- and the Brazil game was a hard time -- they stood strong. Now it's the 20 who have stuck together who will be ready to go out and compete against Norway."
Given Solo's comments after the loss to Brazil, Ryan may have made the right decision. But he's only in the position to make this right decision because he made the horribly wrong decision to bench Solo in the first place. I hope he enjoys the third-place game, because it will undoubtedly be his last as the national team coach.
But I don't think many people know much Solo's background, especially her relationship with her late father, who was homeless for most of Hope's life. This great video from ESPN tells the story:
I'm a Hope Solo fan, and that life story is part of the reason. She seems like a tough young woman who's not going to let anything stand in her way. She wanted to dedicate a World Cup title to her dad, and it's a shame that she didn't get the chance.
Hope Solo, the goalie who was benched prior to Team USA's 4-0 shellacking at the hands of Brazil, has been quite vocal about just how wrong coach Greg Ryan was to make that decision. And although she's been criticized in some quarters for calling out Ryan and teammate Briana Scurry, there's one place where everyone seems to agree with Solo: Her MySpace page.
Solo's Friends Comments include:
hey hope! I'm very upset about the decision your coach have made yesterday!and it's a pity that we can't see a final USA vs. germany I would have really enjoyed this! I wish you the best for your future and that it was the last time for you sitting on the bench... :) greetz
And:
I want you to know that I'm 100% behind you. I think Coach Ryan made one of the 2 biggest coaching blunders in the history of sports (right along side Tretiak being benched in the 1980 Olympics in the USA/USSR hockey game, although I'm thankful for that one).
And:
I truly believe that what your coach did was so WRONG!!
The guy who makes the 1980 Olympics comment seems a little old for MySpace, but other than that, I think these comments are RIGHT!! Ryan really did screw this up.
"It was the wrong decision, and I think anybody that knows anything about the game knows that," she said. "There's no doubt in my mind I would have made those saves. And the fact of the matter is it's not 2004 anymore. ... It's 2007, and I think you have to live in the present. And you can't live by big names. You can't live in the past. It doesn't matter what somebody did in an Olympic gold medal game in the Olympics three years ago. Now is what matters, and that's what I think."
Obviously, we'll never know if that's true or not, and even if she would have made those saves, Team USA might have lost anyway. But Ryan's job is to get his team ready to play, and his team wasn't ready to play today. Solo had tears in her eyes as she was speaking and might regret her emotional comments tomorrow. But that doesn't make them wrong.
Now the question: Who starts for Team USA in the third place game?
Do I actually know who's a better goalkeeper, Briana Scurry or Hope Solo? No.
Do I have an opinion about the news that Scurry will replace Solo as the U.S. goalkeeper against Brazil in the women's World Cup semifinal? Yes. I think it stinks.
U.S. coach Greg Ryan caught everyone by surprise when he made the change, which was apparently motivated by the superior big-game experience of the 36-year-old Scurry. Former American team captain and current ESPN analyst Julie Foudy -- who unlike me actually does have an informed opinion on such matters -- doesn't like the decision.
"I think Bri will be fine, and the move will be fine," Foudy said. "But I just think it becomes a distraction when you're too focused on that rather than the game. To me it's a sign of worrying too much about the opponent. I think you just play. You know they're good. You know their strengths and weaknesses but you don't have to make such a drastic change."
If the Americans beat Brazil and go on to win the World Cup Final on Sunday, Ryan will be a genius. If not he'll be an idiot. I'm betting on the latter.
Olympic athletes often don't get paid to do anything other than look good. In that vein, Attractive Olympians handicaps which athletes may rake in endorsement deals after the Olympics.
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