During breaks in their seemingly endless summer tour, the U.S. softball team likes to talk about what it will encounter when it finally reaches the Olympics next month.
China's food, the language barrier, the pollution, the athletes' village _ all of it gets dissected by these American girls, who have spent the past few months crisscrossing the country by bus while being treated like rock stars everywhere they go. Another favorite topic of conversation: The competition they'll face in Beijing.
The Japanese will be strong as usual. So will the Aussies. And watch out for Canada.
And then there's the Chinese, who might have a surprise or two.
"It's funny," said pitcher Jennie Finch, flashing that million-dollar(euro) smile. "We joke that they're going to have like a Yao Ming of softball."
It might take more than one giant to bring down the awesome Americans.
The experienced U.S. team, which played in a league of its own four years ago at the Athens Games, is the overwhelming favorite to win a fourth consecutive gold medal in what will be softball's final appearance in the Olympics for at least eight years. Along with baseball and modern pentathlon, softball was dropped from the Olympic program for the 2012 Games in London when the sport failed to receive majority support from IOC members in a 2005 vote.
Softball can be reinstated for the 2016 games as early as next year, but for now, China is its last official Olympic at-bat.
"It stinks," U.S. pitcher Cat Osterman said "There are so many girls who look up to us as athletes and want to be in our shoes and dream of one day playing in the Olympics. They come up to us and say, 'I want to be in the Olympics.' And you don't want to say, 'Sorry honey, there isn't one.' All you can do is pray that we're going to get reinstated. It's a great platform for softball."
Four years ago, the Americans were golden on the diamond in Greece. They dominated the eight-team field, winning all nine games by a combined score of 51-1. The U.S. nearly pitched a tournament-long shutout before giving up a run in the sixth inning of the gold-medal game against Australia.
By the time they left the games, the team had set 17 Olympic records and were dubbed "The Real Dream Team."
They don't expect a repeat performance in China.
"It's not going to be Athens," said catcher Stacey Nuveman, a two-time gold medalist and one of 10 players back from the 2004 squad. "We may get a couple of big games where we score seven or eight runs. I just don't see that being the norm. We've had closer games since '04. The rest of the world has gotten better."
Although they have a 223-19 record in international competitions and have won eight world titles since 1965, the Americans have shown some vulnerability in recent years.
Since its Grecian glide, the United States has lost three times. It was beaten twice in the 2005 World Cup at Oklahoma City, losing to Canada 2-1 in the opener and then dropping the gold-medal game to Japan 3-1. One year later at the world championship in Beijing's Fengtai softball field _ site of this year's tournament _ the U.S. lost again to Japan 3-1 before bouncing back to beat the two-time defending Olympic silver medalists 3-0 for the title.
The days of blowout wins could be dwindling.
Sure, there remains an aura of invincibility around the Americans. But it's got some cracks.
In March, the U.S. team was no-hit by Virginia Tech University's Angela Tincher, who ended the Americans' 185-game winning streak in pre-Olympic exhibitions. Then, last month in Oklahoma City, the U.S. had to rally from four runs down to beat a collection of university All-Stars and come back the next day to defeat Canada, a squad capable of a top-three finish in China.
The close games served as a wake-up call for coach Mike Candrea's team, which never trailed in the '04 Games and might have become overconfident while clobbering teams during its "Bound 4 Beijing" tour.
"We definitely needed it," said slugger Crystl Bustos, a three-time Olympian who was pleased to see how her teammates responded to adversity. "The '04 team knew what it was like to lose. We knew what it was like to be behind. We knew what it was like to have to go 14 innings and win a one-run game. This team didn't know what it's like when you're nailed against the wall and you can't go either way but forward. ... That's one thing we're starting to grab a little more, and Oklahoma showed us that it's not going to be like 2004 when we just ran through everyone."
