It was the kiss seen around the world. How Abby Wambach is challenging homophobia in sports.
We've seen it hundreds of times before: An athlete wins a championship, then rushes to embrace their significant other. So what makes this any different?
Arguably one of the greatest soccer players in U.S. history, Abby Wambach is finally a World Cup champion.
Making her fourth tournament appearance since joining the U.S. Women's National Team in 2001, Wambach ended the 2016 World Cup a champion for the very first time — but that's not what the world is talking about the morning after.
Instead, they're focused on something she did that countless athletes have done before as they basked in the glow of victory: She kissed her wife.
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images.
As soon as the final whistle was blown, Wambach rushed to the sidelines to find and kiss her wife, Sarah Huffman.
It was a beautiful moment with major potential to, as BuzzFeed said, "destroy your tear ducts."
Though Wambach and Huffman have been married since 2013, their kiss seemed like the perfect follow-up to June's marriage equality decision.
Both Huffman (a former professional soccer player herself) and Wambach have been involved with the LGBT sports organization Athlete Ally. However, Wambach has made clear that their relationship is about love — as most relationships are! — not politics.
After their wedding in 2013, Wambach said:
"I know that I'll end up being a role model for many, many people out there for all kinds of reasons. My first hope is for being a genuine, honest and good person, then a great soccer player and then down the line, the choice I've made to marry not only my best friend and teammate, but the love of my life. ... I can't speak for other people, but for me, I feel like gone are the days that you need to come out of a closet. I never felt like I was in a closet. I never did. I always felt comfortable with who I am and the decisions I made."
Wambach and Huffman at a party thrown by ESPN earlier this year. Photo by John Parra/Getty Images for ESPN.
Why is this a big deal? Well, sports have not exactly been the most LGBT-inclusive places for fans and athletes.
Just earlier this year, a study confirmed what many already knew: There's a lot of homophobia in the sporting world, especially in the United States.
After being drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the 2014 NFL draft, football star Michael Sam kissed his boyfriend on camera, sparking outrage in the media. During last year's Men's World Cup, homophobic chants from the stands were common enough to the point that FIFA felt the need to investigate.
So, yeah, even just a little bit of same-sex PDA can be a big deal.
Unfortunately, Wambach and Huffman's adorable World Cup kiss was't completely without controversy.
A Getty Image caption for one of the photos originally referred to Huffman as Wambach's "friend." Once people on Twitter pointed this out, the captions were updated accordingly.
But overwhelmingly, the Internet celebrated with the team and the happy couple.
Congratulations, Abby Wambach and the U.S. Women's National Team! You did it!
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images.



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An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.