As we’ve stated previously, here at Bloomer Girls Blog, we’re obsessed with the Olympics and so excited to get together tonight to watch the (taped) Opening Ceremonies with our friends.  So today, for our usual Friday Links, we’re sharing our favorites from posts leading up to the opening of the games.

• Sporty Style: 7 Inspiring Women Olympians from Decades Past – “Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen running the 80-meter hurdles, which she won during the 1948 Summer Olympics in London for a total of four gold medals in athletics. She accomplished this feat as a 30-year old mother of two children, for which she received intense criticism for during the time.  ’I got very many bad letters, people writing that I must stay home with my children and that I should not be allowed to run on a track with — how do you say it? — short trousers,’ Blankers-Koen told The New York Times in 1982. ‘One newspaperman wrote that I was too old to run, that I should stay at home and take care of my children. When I got to London, I pointed my finger at him and I said: ‘I show you.””
• Pretty Strong – Sarah Robles, a U.S. weightlifter, chronicles her daily training routines and is now writing about her time in London.  Robles struggled to make ends meet, but the Internet rallied around her to support her training and make sure she and her coach could fly comfortably to London.  Because of her non-traditional look, Robles never has the opportunities that someone like Lolo Jones does – but Robles is succeeding and will be a worthy competitor in London.
• Female Olympians, however, are still supposed to be pretty first and strong second.  Straight women and gay men ogle male athletes, too, but it’s the women who are expected to play to men’s ideals.
• Two wrongs don’t make a right, but you can ogle some great male Olympians here if that’s your thing.  Screw you, male gaze!
• Megan Rapinoe, star of the U.S. National Women’s Soccer team, is awesome.  Oh and also, she came out of the closet.  In fact, there are 21 openly gay men and women competing in this year’s games.

From both of us here at Bloomer Girls Blog, happy Olympics. Go Team USA!