That is the Olympics over and done with and with us waiting an extra year to see some of our favourite sports stars in action I definitely don't think it disappointed us. My main interest of course was the football but more importantly the women's football as with how the game has grown over recent years it was bound to be a good one. 

Right from the get go the women's football was interesting with World Cup winners the USA losing to Sweden in their opening game ending their unbeaten run going into the competition. In fact the whole tournament was a shock with the USA as they really didn't look their best and looked like they could be broken down easily. They did leave with a bronze medal but I do think that if they performed as they had in the run up to the competition they could have been in that final chasing gold. They just looked fatigued and disjointed and not like the USA we are used to seeing who look like they could walk any game and take away a victory. It was nice to see other teams in the final other than them but it would have been nice to see Christen Press & Tobin Heath pick up a gold medal. 

Whilst USA weren't having a great competition Australia had a brilliant competition and were very unlucky to walk away without a medal. The team had some great comebacks and looked really well put together. Going into the start of the competition I didn't expect that Australia would make it into the final 4 but they really surprised me. The thing with Australia is that they are a pretty young team still so who knows what we are going to see from them in future competitions, with the quality of players they have I think we could be seeing them in a lot of later stages of tournaments. 

It was really nice to see Christine Sinclair picking up a gold medal with Canada as she is one of the greatest women's players ever in my eyes. Canada winning a medal whilst beating the USA on the way to victory is fantastic and is not something you see very often. I didn't expect to see Canada in the final at all especially against Sweden but to see a lot of those veteran players finally winning a competition is great. Sinclair is in her late 30's now so you wonder just how long she is going to be playing for so to see her possibly play her final Olympics and take away the gold is absolutely fantastic. 

Mot nations fielded their usual teams that play multiple times together a year & play together in all the competitions together however, Team GB made some adjustments and added in a few other players of different nationalities as it was all of Great Britain being represented rather than just England. I was a bit worried about how those few extra players of different nationalities would effect the team as they aren't used to playing together and didn't have much time together going into the games but those extra players didn't seem to matter. the team looked good and strong at times however, a few players did manage to get past them a bit too easily. I hope we get to see Team GB in the French Olympics the next time around as it made a nice change to just watching England. To say they didn't play much together they had a great group stage and did well in the quarter finals too and fell short to a great Australian comeback. Ellen White once again had a great tournament and let's hope that we see her popping goals in for the fun of it for Manchester City this season too as she is in great form.

I am surprised that the Netherlands didn't make it further than the quarter finals as I really thought they would defeat the USA and progress due to how the USA had being playing, the Netherlands are a team that are definitely on the rise at the moment but the draw just proved that bit too strong for them. I think we are going to see them in the latter stages of plenty of other tournaments in the future though. The whole tournament was a great showcase for women's football though and we saw it to be a lot more competitive rather than seeing the same old teams doing well which should show those just taking interest in the game it is changing and it isn't just a one horse race anymore. Countries are putting more into the game 

One issue I did have though is actually getting to watch full games live rather than catching up on highlights etc. Here in the UK we could watch a few of Team GB's games on the BBC but if something more important was happening they weren't showing the football games. So to watch it you had to sign up to Eurosport to be able to watch live and I refused to sign up for yet another service just to watch a few games. I already spend enough on subscriptions to be able to watch what I like and yes you get a free trial but if I forgot to cancel it was £9.99 a month which I don't want to pay. There should have been a bit more option on how to watch free of charge as they will have been cutting off a section of the women's fan base and not advertising it to a new potential audience. I don't think the football in the Olympics was publisised very well either as the competition started before the opening ceremony and I doubt a lot of people who aren't fans of the game would have even known it was on unless they randomly came across it on the TV. It makes you wonder if they could have advertised and showed the football a bit more to a wider audience and we could have even seen a growth in the women's football fan base I believe due to the performances we were seeing on the pitch. 

I think over the coming years we could see some fantastic tournaments with underdogs causing upsets and teams really coming into their own. I don't think the game is going to be filled with the same old teams doing well each time I think we are going to see a lot of teams on the rise and progressing to the later stages of tournaments. The women's game is on the rise and so are a lot of the countries involved in competing. The future of women's football is certainly looking bright.