Gold Medalists on Oprah!

The gold-medal winning U.S. Women's National Soccer Team -- along with 175 U.S. Olympic medalists -- will appear on a very special season premier of the The Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday, Sept. 8, 2008. Check your local listings for air time.

The 23rd season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" goes for the gold when almost every American medalist gets together for an unforgettable hour. Viewers will cheer as their favorites from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games take the stage at Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park for a “Welcome Home Team USA” celebration for the record books! A crowd of thousands will show Chicago’s Olympic spirit as it bids for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Olympians appearning include Michael Phelps, Nastia Luikin, Shawn Johnson, Dara Torres, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Lisa Leslie, Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, Jennie Finch and many more will be on hand to answer the questions on the minds of Americans: how does it feel to have achieved their Olympic dreams? What does it take to be the best in the world? What’s next for these world-class athletes? Then, Oprah will go behind the headlines for the incredible Olympic stories that you haven’t heard.

Fourteen of the 18 WNT players were on hand and they had as much fun back stage hanging out with all the other athletes as they did on stage. If you can't catch it live, set the DVRs, because you may never see this many medalists gathered together in one place again. Unless Oprah decides to invite them after 2012.

First Pitchers

Photos by: Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers

The gold-medal winning WNT players have been doing a few appearances and other fun stuff since returning from China. Example: On Aug. 5, Shannon Boxx and Lindsay Tarpley threw out first pitches before the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Arizona Diamondbacks game at Dodger Stadium. The players were treated extremely well by the Dodgers, had a lot of fun and got a great ovation before their pitches (both made it to home plate by the way). This much is clear: Fans love gold medals! It took the Boxxy and Tarp about 10 minutes to wade through the fans from the field to the concourse after they threw the pitches as they were stopped for multiple autographs and pictures. So thanks very much to the Dodgers (who won the game!) and good luck to the Blue in the run for the division title.


The players got their pic taken with a big WNT fan, Nomar Garciaparra, husband of U.S. legend Mia Hamm. Nomar also signed their baseballs.

Lindsay and Shannon warm-up for their pitches by taking pics with their gold medals.

The two Dodgers who caught their first pitches were Mark Sweeney (21), who caught Boxxy's pitch and Danny Ardoin (28) who caught Tarpley's.