Alex Morgan was planning to be back with the U.S. Women’s national soccer team in time for the Olympics this summer, mere weeks after giving birth to her first child.
The 2012 gold medalist and two-time World Cup champion supports the International Olympic Committee’s decision last week to postpone the 2020 Japan games until July 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Overall it’s just the right decision,” Morgan said in an extensive interview with Glamour. “I tried to look at it more from a team perspective, but I couldn’t help but think of myself with all of the stress that’s going on from the coronavirus on top of trying to get back in shape in such a short amount of time.”
“That’s the best decision to level the playing field for all athletes in all events.”
Morgan, 30, announced shortly after the U.S. team repeated as World Cup champions last year that she and her husband, soccer player Servando Carrasco, were expecting their first child, a daughter, in April.
“Casual fans of the game were just like, ‘Why would she do something like that during the peak of her career?’” Morgan had told the magazine in February, before the postponement was announced. “It’s not like women can’t do both — our bodies are incredible — it’s the fact that this world isn’t really set up for women to thrive,” she says. “That was one thing where I was like, ‘Do I want to be public with this?’ This is my body, my family, my life.”
“I thought to myself, I have the support in place to be able to come back. There’s no reason for me to stop just to start a family.”
And there’s no reason to believe Morgan – whose 107 international goals are tied for fifth on the all-time USWNT list – won’t return to the national team once play resumes after the pandemic.
“We can only hypothesize over so much uncertainty in the future,” she said. “If I have no goal to try to achieve, then that’s not true to the core of who I am.
“There are a hundred things that have been going through my mind. Now I have more time to deal, and I’ll have more time with my daughter without the endless questions. I can figure it out with a little more calm and a little more clarity. I have to look to the positives.”