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Striving for perfection Fernandez motivated by rivalry with Australians
NEW YORK (AP) -- A few months after leading her team to the first Olympic gold medal in softball, star pitcher Lisa Fernandez got a postcard that reminded her of the image she most wanted to forget. Pictured on the front was Australia's Joanne Brown, waving a flag and riding on the shoulders of her teammates after her 10th-inning homer spoiled Fernandez's perfect game and gave the Americans their only loss of the Atlanta Games. The stamp had an Australian postmark. "I don't know if it was someone on the team or a fan. But it was someone obviously trying to stick a knife just a little bit deeper in an open wound," Fernandez said. "I felt definitely as if it were a personal attack. "When there's a day I don't want to get up, I think about that: If anybody finds you weak, or a place that you're vulnerable, they're going to come after you." Some might think that winning a gold medal would be sufficient consolation, but not Fernandez. When you're the most dominant player in a sport, the real struggle can sometimes be finding the challenge that keeps the game interesting. And Fernandez might have found it in her rivalry with the Australian team. She took a perfect game into the 10th against the Aussies in the opening round in '96 and was one strike away from finishing them off when Brown hit a two-run homer to win it. Fernandez sobbed after the game. "It's something I live with every day," she said. "After I'd given up the home run and we win the gold medal and everything's fine, and you think it's over and you're ready to move on. Then the postcard comes around Thanksgiving, and it brings up a nightmare. "All those emotions that I felt right after that game came back. I get a feeling of intensity, of heat, a burning feeling right away when I hear 'Australia.' I get on guard, as if we're ready to do battle, and you're facing a team that's ready to come after you." This time, Fernandez will be ready. She is unwilling to settle for good enough, and she rarely does. During this summer's Olympic preparation tour, she pitched five consecutive perfect games; in No. 5, she struck out all 21 batters. For the rest of the U.S. team, it has been much the same. The Americans were eyeing a 100-game winning streak as they wrapped up their "Central Park to Sydney" tour, outscoring opponents 364-3 in the first 51 games. Their dominance makes them the Olympic favorites, as they were in '96. But all agree that the gap between the Americans and the rest of the world is shrinking. "It's not going to be, 'The USA's coming in. Everybody bow down and hand over the medals,'" Fernandez said. "These people are excited about having the chance to upend who's at the top." Japan's improved defense makes them a threat, and China lost a pair of one-run decisions to the United States before falling 3-1 in the gold medal game in Atlanta. And then there's Australia, which has emerged as the Americans' chief rival since winning the bronze medal, beating the U.S. team on Brown's homer in '96 and three more times since then. The eight-team tournament also includes Canada, Cuba, Italy and New Zealand. "They all have, in their minds, the feeling that they are improving," said second baseman Dot Richardson, who has finished her medical training and moved from shortstop since '96. "As usual, every country guns for us. That's the way we've always had it, and the way we want it. We actually welcome the challenge," she said. "It's easy to get to the top. The true challenge is staying there." With the games being played in a new stadium in the Sydney suburb of Blacktown, the hosts have the added advantage - and the Americans the added challenge -- of playing in front of 8,000 Australians. This doesn't scare the U.S. team. "We're actually looking forward to being in a hostile environment. To have fans booing you and you throw the first pitch 80 mph. There's nothing better than hearing the silence of the crowd," Fernandez said. "That's something that internally lights our fire." And it's something they're accustomed to, as well. "The majority of places we go, everyone's rooting against the Americans," first baseman Sheila Douty said. "We've played through that our entire lives, everywhere we went." Despite coasting through their tour against a variety of college and pro teams, the summer has not been without problems for the Americans. Twice the roster had to be reselected after players who didn't make the team appealed. The players didn't know who their teammates would be until six weeks before the Olympics. The final roster includes eight players from the team that won the gold medal. As for the postcard from Australia, Fernandez said she threw it out but has "a real good picture of it in my head." And although she doesn't sound convincing, she insists she could live with something less than perfection in Sydney -- as long as it was her best effort. "That was probably my most painful experience as an athlete, but I learned a valuable lesson from it: What we did in '96 really means nothing," she said. "This team will definitely not rest on its laurels, because we have people who will continue to push."
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