USWNT’s Tierna Davidson feels Olympic gold medal sweeter after battling adversity

United States Women’s National Team and Gotham FC defender Tierna Davidson didn’t want to make it seem like battling through adversity was something that was unique to her, but she did acknowledge that it made the gold medal that she won during the Paris Olympics that much sweeter.

Davidson, 25, wasn’t part of the U.S. women’s World Cup team that fell short in 2023 and had lost most of her 2022 NWSL season to an ACL tear.

On top of that, Davidson missed two games during the gold-medal run in Paris because of a knee contusion, but she returned in time to be part of the starting lineup for the United States’ win against Brazil .

“Unfortunately it’s something you kind of agree to when you sign up to be a professional athlete. You agree to the uncertainty, you agree to the possibility of injury and my story is not unique in that sense,” Davidson said Thursday during a promotional appearance at Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers in Astor Place.

“I think that’s what makes the moments of triumph so much sweeter is you kind of understand your whole story. There are bits of it only I would know and only my family will know. I think that’s why we have to celebrate these moments and appreciate these moments, because for us as athletes, they’re very fleeting. There’s a lot of darker moments that lead to these ones, but it’s so important for our growth as players and growth as people, so I wouldn’t change it.”

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Davidson has now won gold and a bronze medal (2021 in Tokyo) in her first two Olympic appearances of her career and she can say she helped capture her latest medal amid a rather unique changeover for the women’s national team.

New head coach Emma Hayes took over the program just a few months before the summer games were set to begin after being hired in November, delaying joining the USWNT until May after she finished coaching Chelsea in the Women’s Super League.

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Davidson lauded the job that Hayes has done for the U.S. program, specifically mentioning that she helped bring the “joy” back.

“She does a really great job in humanizing herself and recognizing the difficulties of her job and our job and what we have to do and the pressure that comes with it,” the American defender said. “She gets it out into the open and that allows everybody to just take a deep breath, and realize the game is just a game. Each game is a 90-minute game — or in some cases, 120 — where we have the same objective we always do. “That really released us and allowed us to play with joy and with each other as teammates but also as friends, and build chemistry.”

She called the USWNT’s potential “limitless” as it looks ahead to the World Cup in 2027.

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The United States captured gold with a 1-0 win over Brazil in a game that was the most-watched Olympic soccer match ever in NBC history , drawing in an average of 9 million viewers.

When asked about the scores of fans watching and the significance that it could have on women’s soccer, Davidson said that she was “really proud of the progress” the sport was making in the United States and beyond.

“I think that speaks volumes to the quality of soccer we put on the field and the excitement we’re able to bring to the game,” Davidson said. “I think that we deserve it and it’s really great to see it happening.

“Hopefully, it’s only up from here.”

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