Lisa FernÁndez

The U.S. team was heavily favored again going into the 2000 Sydney (Australia) Olympics-they had a 110-game winning streak going into those games-but victory did not come as easily to them in Sydney as it had in Atlanta. The team lost three games in a row, to Japan, China, and their nemesis Australia, during the round-robin portion of the tournament. The game against Australia was an eerie replay play of their 1996 round-robin matchup: In the first 12 and two-thirds innings Fernández allowed only one hit and no runners to score, and she set an Olympic record of 25 strikeouts. Then in the bottom of the thirteenth inning an Australian batter hit a home run off of her to win the game. After that, Fernández ordered her team into the showers, uniforms and all, to wash off the "voodoo." Apparently it worked, because the United States won all of their games after that. They beat China, Australia, and Japan, in that order, in the playoffs to win the gold.