World Cup Wins, Olympic Gold, and Simone Biles: 16 Iconic Women's Sports Moments From the 2010s

In 2011, the Japanese women's football team became the first Asian team of any gender to win a World Cup. And their victory, over a heavily-favoured US team, wasn't just historical. Earlier that year, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc in northeastern Japan, causing over 15,000 deaths and a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Japan's groundbreaking victory on one of sport's largest stages came at the right time, for a country that sorely needed its message of hope and perseverance over adversity.

Back in 2012, Katie Ledecky was a 15-year old high schooler, the baby of the US Olympic swim team, and an athlete full of untried potential. Upsetting the field in the 800-meter freestyle and obliterating a world record ensured that none of her opponents would underestimate her again. Since that breakout performance, Katie has gone on to win six Olympic medals (so far) and 15 world titles, the undeniable, practically-unbeatable superstar of swimming.

Before Katie Ledecky, before Simone Manuel, there was Missy Franklin, whose record-smashing performances and vibrant personality made her one of the faces of Team USA at the 2012 Olympic Games. She captured four golds and a bronze, sweeping the women's backstroke competition in the process. Her 11 world championship medals set a record for female swimmers surpassed only by Katie Ledecky. Though chronic shoulder pain cut her career short in 2018, Missy's Olympic performance heralded a new era of dominant female swimmers for Team USA.

From 2004 to 2012, the dream duo of Kerri Walsh-Jennings and Misty May-Treanor owned beach volleyball. In their first two Olympic tournaments, they took gold without ever dropping a set. In 2012, after a few years away from each other (Kerri gave birth to two children and Misty dealt with injuries), they entered their final Olympics as underdogs and fought their way to one last gold, becoming the only beach volleyball team with three straight Olympic titles and cementing their status as icons of the sport.

Danica Patrick shot to fame in 2005 after her Indianapolis 500 debut; in 2009, she secured the best-ever finish by a woman in that race, placing third. Danica secured her legacy in the 2010s. She expanded into stock-car racing and, in 2014, placed eighth at the prestigious Daytona 500, another best-ever finish by a female driver on that course. She retired in 2018, leaving the sport with a slew of broken records, a burnished legacy, and a shattered glass ceiling.

With a come-from-behind victory in the 100m freestyle, Simone Manuel became the first African American woman to win an individual gold in Olympic swimming. It was a groundbreaking achievement that established Simone as one of the best swimmers in the world (she's gone on to claim 11 world championship medals), an athlete pushing for inclusivity and breaking down the expectations of who a swimmer can be.

We might as well call this the Decade of Simone Biles. In the years since her show-stopping performance in Rio, where she won five medals, Simone has been practically unbeatable in international gymnastics. She essentially owns her own record book at this point and already has four flips named after her.

But as for her most iconic moment? We have to go with her performance in the team and all-around finals in Rio, back in 2016. Already heralded as one of the best gymnasts of all time, Simone was competing under intense pressure and scrutiny. She still managed to blow every expectation out of the water, cementing her status as the undeniable GOAT of gymnastics.

The US women's basketball team is all but unstoppable. In 2016, they bagged their sixth consecutive Olympic gold medal, an achievement never before seen in women's team sports. They haven't relinquished the Olympic title since 1996, winning gold eight times since the sport's inclusion in 1976. If Team USA wins again in 2020, they'll equal the record set by the men's basketball team from 1936-1968: seven gold medals in a row.

With her 2017 victory at the Australian Open, Serena Williams surpassed Steffi Graf to claim the most Open Era Grand Slam wins with an incredible 23. (She's still one win behind Margaret Court, who owns the overall record.) Serena's impact on the game and on women's sports as a whole is hard to exaggerate: her powerful playing style has revolutionized tennis, while her matter-of-fact (and well-deserved) confidence in her ability has urged other female athletes to follow in her footsteps. According to Forbes, she's currently the highest-paid female athlete in the world.

Chloe Kim had already secured a gold medal in halfpipe when she dropped in for her final Olympic run in 2018. But instead of a low-key victory lap, Chloe took aim at history. She flew into back-to-back 1080 flips, the first time that difficult combination had been landed at the Olympics. The run, scored less than two points shy of a perfect 100, was vivid proof that Chloe's progressive, rule-breaking style was already pushing the sport to the next level. Chloe's currently taking a temporary break from snowboarding to attend Princeton, but we suspect we'll see carving up a halfpipe by the time the 2022 Olympics roll around.

Twenty years: that's how long it had been since the US women's ice hockey team won gold when they headed for the Olympics in 2018. In the final that year, the team would meet its bitter rivals: Canada, who'd won an unprecedented four gold medals and handed the US the silver in three of those games. The final was electrifying, ending in a nail-biting shootout with the US securing the gold for the first time since 1998. It gave the players the momentum they needed to begin pushing for higher pay in their professional league.

Naomi Osaka's defeat of Serena Williams in the 2018 US Open initially made headlines for Serena's controversial rule violations. Over a year later, though, Naomi's first Grand Slam win is remembered as it should be: a signature victory for a fast-rising star. The US Open win marked Naomi's first Grand Slam victory and the first by a Japanese woman. Since then, she's become the second-highest paid female athlete in the world (behind Serena). On the cusp of the Tokyo Olympics next year, Naomi seems poised to make the 2020's her decade.

Katelyn Ohashi stole our hearts with a Michael Jackson-themed floor routine that went viral in 2018. When the UCLA gymnast took the floor for her senior season in 2019, it was with a whole new arsenal of jaw-dropping flips and the same jubilant enthusiasm we fell in love with. Obviously a few perfect 10's followed, but what really landed Katelyn on this list was how she harnessed her talent and influence to become a voice for body positivity and self-love in gymnastics and in women's sports as a whole.

The US women's national team entered the 2019 World Cup already mired in a lawsuit against US Football, alleging gender discrimination. As the competition wore on, the team faced accusations of arrogance and criticism of their political stances. They managed to ignore the noise, win every game, and leave the tournament with a fourth World Cup trophy and a fourth star on their crest, becoming icons not only of the sport but in the broader fight for gender equality.