The Beauty of Sport, Part Two!

For the first time since March 2007, I am presenting female athletes for the entire month.  Why did it take so long to revisit women in sports?   I really don't have an answer for that, but maybe it's because that, apart from the WNBA, female athletes don't get a lot of attention when the Olympics aren't going on.  Of course, 2007 wasn't an Olympic year, though I had a lot of names I was already familiar with to work with.  As for 2008 or 2010 . . . I must have been pre-occupied with something else.  Sorry about that.

Anyway, I'm going to try to include foreign athletes as well as American ones, though the bulk of them will likely be American.  While a lot of current athletes will be included (as opposed to my last "The Beauty of Sport" series, which featured a lot of retired ones), I am going to stay true to my rule of not featuring any females under 18.  So, while I'm paying tribute to the recently retired Nastia Liukin (22 years old as of August 2012), who tried unsuccessfully to make the 2012 U.S. Olympic team, I will refrain from featuring any current gymnasts.

Which raises the obvious question: Why is it called "women's gymnastics," when it's primarily the domain of girls?

And don't look for track star Sanya Richards - who has gotten married and is now Sanya Richards-Ross - in here.  I'm only featuring women I haven't featured before and I featured Sanya Richards-Ross as part of the U.S. women's 4x400-meter track relay team that won the Olympic gold medal in that event at Beijing in 2008.  Maybe I'll feature her in a retrospective post in early September.

And oh yes, despite the fact that it's summer as I begin this series, I'll be including some winter athletes here too. :-)

   

But enough of my yakking.  Let's move on to the swifter, higher, and stronger of the female sex.