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Rapinoe Gets Emotional After Olympic Loss: ‘Bitter One To Swallow,’ ‘Don’t Think I’ve Ever Lost To Canada’

   DailyWire.com
Megan Rapinoe #15 of Team United States looks on as she warms up prior to the Women's Semi-Final match between USA and Canada on day ten of the Tokyo Olympic Games at Kashima Stadium on August 02, 2021 in Kashima, Ibaraki, Japan.
Naomi Baker/Getty Images

U.S. women’s soccer captain Megan Rapinoe was overcome with emotion after getting knocked out of gold medal contention at the Tokyo Olympics by Canada on Monday morning.

Rapinoe called the 1-0 loss a “bitter one to swallow” and noted that she doesn’t think Team USA has ever taken a loss to Canada since she’s been on the team.

The forward shed some tears talking about teammate Carli Lloyd and the prospect of never playing at another Olympics — Rapinoe is 36 years old and Lloyd is 39.

“It’s terrible. We just didn’t have it today,” Rapinoe told reporters after the game. “Just too many errors from us again. I felt like the space was there for us to play and we just couldn’t get into it, too many touches or, you know, an errant touch.”

“That’s football. They got, I think, one shot on goal, a PK, and from what it sounds like it was a PK. So yeah, it’s a bitter one to swallow.”

“Obviously we never want to lose to Canada,” she added. “I don’t think I’ve ever lost to Canada. So it’s a bitter one.”

Asked about Lloyd’s visible disappointment following the loss, Rapinoe became emotional.

“Obviously we’ve been in this a long time together,” she said. “We’re both closer to the end than at the beginning and we’ve shared a lot of those happy moments on the field, and not that many sad, but we’ve had a few.”

“It’s tough, one of the greatest players to ever pull this jersey on probably,” Rapinoe said of Lloyd, noting that this might be her teammates’ last Olympics.

“We wanna send everybody out on the happiest note, and, ya know, we weren’t able to do that tonight.”

Rapinoe, though, says she’s looking ahead to the fight for bronze.

“Obviously there’s still a lot to compete for,” she said. “That’s what I told the girls and what we talked about in the huddle. It’s not the color we want, but there’s still a medal on the line. That’s a huge thing and we want to win that game, but yeah, this is … this sucks. It sucks.”

Team USA got off to a rocky start at the Tokyo Olympics, losing their opener to Sweden 3-0.

Notably, before the game, all 22 players took a knee in solidarity with the radical leftist group Black Lives Matter, a major point of contention with U.S. fans.

As noted by Yahoo! Sports, athletes at the Tokyo Olympics were given space to protest before games and events. Team USA knelt before their kickoff, just as players on Sweden’s women’s team did:

The U.S. women’s national team and other soccer teams knelt before kickoff of their Olympic openers on Wednesday, the first demonstrations under slightly relaxed restrictions on protest at the Games.

The demonstrations were pre-planned, as they have been before various international soccer matches for over a year now as collective statements against racism and other forms of discrimination. 

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