I’m a retired elite athlete in the way some people were child actors.
At one point, my entire life revolved around wrestling and most other things seemed relatively insignificant in comparison. Daily strength training would lead into practice, which started in the afternoon and went well-into the evening, often followed by some endurance running. Weekends were for competing.
And like most elite athletes growing up, the Olympics were a staunch motivator. I believed that if I simply trained harder, I could one day compete under the United States’ banner. A mid-match shoulder dislocation and labral tear — and the subsequent surgery afterwards — set those Olympic-minded thoughts on fire.
Now, my singlet is folded neatly in a box at the top of my closet, along with my plaques and medals, but one thing has remained: The Olympics are everything to me.
For as long as I can remember, the even years held some of my most vivid memories, like sitting cross-legged in front of the TV at odd times, trying to teach myself a backbend as Simone Biles broke every record on Earth, Chloe Kim setting the standard for in-competition 1080s — and asking my mom why I never learned to snowboard. I sobbed when Helen Maroulis became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling. Like so many young athletes, the Olympics have always felt personal.
Ahead of this year’s games, I couldn’t wait to watch my favorite events like Halfpipe, Slopestyle and Figure Staking, especially as Alysa Liu was returning after early retirement.
But if these Olympics have proved anything, it’s that women are already delivering gold — and our culture refuses to treat it like it counts.
This year, at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Team USA took home 33 medals — 12 of them gold. Eight of those gold medals belonged to women.
It wasn’t a supporting role, nor a feel-good storyline. It was the headline.
Through the 2026 Olympics, it was women setting the standard of excellence. Except, the conversation hasn’t really been reflecting that.
I know what it feels like to win and still be treated like an afterthought. I’ve stood on podiums where the applause felt thinner than it did for the boys before me. I’ve been booed walking onto the mat. I competed against boys while fighting for girls’ wrestling to exist at all. I trained in rooms where their schedules came first.
So when women bring home the majority of the gold and still get treated like the B-story, I recognize the pattern. I don’t need it explained to me.
Instead of celebrating the amount of women who took home medals from Milan, the story on everyone’s lips is the American Men’s Ice Hockey team and its historic victory, and President Trump calling to offer congratulations — just to mock the Olympic champion Women’s Ice Hockey team in the same sentence.
“And you know, I have to invite the women’s team,” Trump said over speakerphone before the locker room erupted into laughter. “I fear I may be impeached if I don’t.”
Although there were some outliers that seemed genuinely supportive of the women’s team’s win, one voice could be heard shouting “Absolutely!” and “2 for 2!” in the recording, those singular voices could not overpower the ‘boys-club energy’ radiating off the rest of his team.
I’ve heard that laugh before — in wrestling rooms, around me at tournaments as I warmed up. It’s the kind of laugh that feels like casual cruelty. Not inherently personal, just how it’s always been. It still lands the same.
Some men’s hockey team members — like Jake Guentzel, Kyle Connor, Brock Nelson, Jackson LaCombe and Jake Oettinger — declined Trump’s invitation to the White House.
While this may be nice to hear, the rest of the men’s team paraded through the White House halls. Those few players’ actions were left reading more like a footnote than anything.
Amid the public backlash post-games, brothers and Team USA teammates Quinn and Jack Hughes seemed to double down on the matter. Sons of Olympic women’s team staff member Ellen Wienberg-Hughes, the Hughes’ response felt disrespectful and offhanded.
“People are so negative out there and they are trying to find a reason to put people down and make something out of almost nothing,” Jack Hughes told reporters Monday night.
Quinn Hughes shared that sentiment, saying that the team was “excited” to visit the White House and attend the State of the Union, sharing that it was going to be special for the team.
FBI director Kash Patel has also been berated in the headlines lately, downing beers and jumping up and down with players in the Team USA locker room, after having flown to Italy via American taxpayer dollars — something he has been ridiculed for in the past.
When headlines focus on political figures laughing about “having to invite” the women’s team, or public officials celebrating men’s hockey all while women fight for visibility, it reveals something deeper than one moment of disrespect.
It makes the value gap hard to ignore.
Forget about the pay gap for a minute. Nearly 64% of the medals won this year by Team USA went home around the necks of female athletes — and yet, society is treating them like a sideshow. You cannot claim to support women’s sports while devaluing them in the same breath.
We often celebrate excellence in theory. But we seem to hesitate when excellence belongs to women — unless it’s packaged as inspiration, overcoming adversity or a thoughtful human-interest feature narrated in a soft piano voice.
Gold, apparently, still needs a qualifier.
Women aren’t lacking results. They’re lacking recognition. The same people saying they want to ‘protect women’s sports’ don’t see the importance of women’s sports. When society doesn’t put female athletes on the same pedestal as male athletes, it signals to every young girl and woman that no matter what she accomplishes or how good she is at something, it will never be enough.
Women aren’t asking to be celebrated for trying. They’re asking to be valued for winning.
Maybe “everyone watches women’s sports” is wishful thinking right now. And it shouldn’t be.
Our sisters and daughters don’t wait to be inspiring. They already have the gold. The real problem is that society is still unwilling to treat it like it counts.
