[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11003]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         CONGRATULATING THE U.S. WOMEN'S WORLD CUP SOCCER TEAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Olson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLSON. Mr. Speaker, this past Sunday, the day after our 
Independence Day, the U.S. women's World Cup team gave us the best 
fireworks show ever. They lit up the team that beat them 4 years ago in 
the World Cup, Japan.
  We scored in the third minute, the fifth minute, the 14th minute, and 
the 16th minute. 4-0 in 16 minutes. We had gone over 5\1/2\ hours 
without giving up a goal. Japan was done.
  Our women won every game because they left their egos in the locker 
room. When they jogged onto that field, they were a team full of love, 
love of soccer, love of America, and love of each other, their 
teammates.
  The best example of that love was a small blue arm band. It is worn 
by our team captain. If you missed this band's journey through our 
victory on Sunday, I will recount it for you.
  It was on Christie Rampone's left arm as her gold medal was placed 
around her neck. It was her second gold medal in a World Cup match. She 
is closer to my age than all of her teammates. Sunday was her last 
World Cup game.
  She got that blue band from Abby Wombach, the greatest woman soccer 
player in American history. That is her picture beside me. Abby has 
scored 23 goals in World Cup matches, but she had only had a silver 
medal from World Cup matches, never a gold. She knew that was changing 
when she jogged onto that field in the 79th minute of play.

                              {time}  1100

  She also knew that, like Christie, this was her last World Cup match. 
A teammate stopped Abby before she entered the game. Team Captain Carli 
Lloyd stopped her idol, Abby, to make sure Abby's uniform was complete. 
There was a problem that Carli had to fix up, so she helped Abby by 
putting that blue armband on her left sleeve as our team captain.
  Carli plays pro soccer in my hometown of Houston, Texas, and we 
Texans believe bigger is always better. While Carli has been a Texan 
for a few months, she knows how to go big, real big. She scored a hat 
trick--three goals--in the first 16 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, the 2015 women's World Cup gold medalists gave us a 
priceless gift: the joy of being alive, feeling American pride surge 
through your veins, having that breath--that short breath of 
excitement--or having that extra heartbeat, knowing that you are alive.
  America thanks our gold medal winners, our America's World Cup 
champions of 2015.

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