Opinion: Women's mainstays of US Olympic effort have four hours to forget in Tokyo

TOKYO — USA women’s gymnastics loses Simone Biles, then loses to Russia.

USA softball loses the gold medal to Japan, just as it did the last time softball was in the Olympics 13 years ago.

USA women’s soccer plays Australia to an unimpressive scoreless tie, moving on in the Olympics but not looking very good in the process.

All of that bad news happened within less than four hours Tuesday evening at the Tokyo Olympic Games. Three of the mainstays of the American Olympic effort, three of the most reliable U.S. success stories, all struggled at the same time.

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This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Women’s sports are the backbone of the U.S. Olympic team, particularly women’s team sports. Women make up a majority of the U.S. Olympic team for the third consecutive time. Women usually are the biggest stars of Team USA, thanks to Title IX, the 49-year-old law that opened the floodgates for women and girls to play sports just like their brothers had for generations. It’s not a surprise then that the Olympics are the Super Bowl for female athletes.

Since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, American women’s team sports have mostly thrived at the Olympic Games. That was the year that soccer and softball debuted in the Games, and the Americans won gold in both. That also was the year the U.S. women won a dramatic team gold in gymnastics.

Both the soccer and softball teams have had their stumbles over the years, but few expected them both to have trouble in Tokyo. The softball team went undefeated in round-robin play but struggled with its offense all tournament, and that continued in its 2-0 loss to Japan. The two-time defending World Cup champion soccer team, meanwhile, has been a mystery.

The Americans lost to Sweden 3-0 to start the Olympic tournament, and head into the quarterfinals still in search of momentum, and an offense. In Rio in 2016, the Americans exited in the quarterfinals, their worst performance ever in the Olympics. Could that happen again? It’s certainly possible.

And what do we say about the stunning events that took place at the gymnastics venue during the women’s team final? To lose Biles after she withdrew as she deals with the stress of competing at the Olympics, was an awful twist of fate, followed by mistakes that doomed any U.S. chance for gold.

It was the first time since 2010 that the United States didn’t win the women’s team title at a world championships or Olympic Games.

Turns out that for some of the nation’s best women athletes, it was just that kind of a day.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tokyo Games' four hours to forget for US women's success stories