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'Summer of the Women': How 1996 Olympics changed sports forever

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'Summer of the Women': How 1996 Olympics changed sports forever

Ann Killion Updated: Aug. 1, 2016 11:36 a.m.



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'Summer of the Women': How 1996 Olympics changed sports forever

Team USA celebrates their win in the Women''s Soccer Finals during the 1996 Olympic Games in the Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. The Women''s Team USA defeated the Women''s Team China 2-1.

David Cannon/Getty Images

Twenty years is about the length of a generation. A group of people born around the same time, living under a common experience.

By that measure, America's current 20-year-olds have never doubted the role or value of female athletes. That is thanks in large part to the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

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Those Games were the "Summer of the Women," a watershed moment that forever changed the stature of women in sports.

"That Olympics set the tone for many generations to come," said Dominique Moceanu, a member of the gold-medal-winning 1996 U.S. gymnastics team. "We became part of something magical.

"When you have more distance, you can see how special that moment was."

The legacy of the female athletes of 1996 will live on in Rio de Janeiro. American women are again the favorites in soccer, basketball, water polo and gymnastics, and the U.S. will send competitive swimming and track teams. The 292 women on the 555-member U.S. team are the most female athletes to compete for a nation in Olympic history.

Women had shared the Olympic spotlight with male athletes long before 1996. Many gymnasts, track stars and swimmers had earned glory and fame. But that summer's Olympics were different. Not only did the "Magnificent 7" gymnasts win gold, but American women also dominated team sports, winning gold in basketball as well as in softball and soccer -- two sports added for the first time in Atlanta.

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Timeline: Women's sports



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