On Wednesday, the city of Atlanta began its 100-day countdown to the start of the Olympic Games on July 19.

On that same day, Arizona's Leah O'Brien began her own countdown. However, hers is a 103-day countdown and will end when she takes the field with the rest of the United States' Olympic softball team on July 22.

O'Brien left Tucson on Wednesday for the Olympic training complex in Columbus, Ga., where she and the other 14 members of the heavily-favored U.S. team will live and train right up to the games.

All the training work will begin to pay off on the night of the 19th, when she walks among the other American athletes at the opening ceremonies. She will walk among athletes like Dream Teamer Scottie Pippen, six-time track gold medal winner Carl Lewis, and gold-medal winning swimmer Janet Evans.

Is she excited? Count on it.

Does she know what to expect? Not a chance.

"A lot of people ask me that," O'Brien said. "I think it's just something that I'm going to have to experience to know."

She would have been a senior on this year's Wildcat softball team but redshirted to pursue a gold medal.

O'Brien is expected to play right field, a departure from her home in center. But it is likely that no matter where she plays, her defense will be a big key to the American medal hopes.

"She is just a great defensive player," UA assistant coach Stacey Hill said.

In fact, it was an O'Brien catch that Hill once called "the best catch I've ever seen."

It came in, of all places, the College World Series. During her freshman year, O'Brien made a leaping, over-the-fence grab to rob a player of a home run.

But O'Brien is known for coming up big at the plate, too.

"She is huge clutch hitter," Hill said. "She is who you want up with the winning run on second in the bottom of the seventh with two outs in the championship game."

She may be a clutch player, but this is the Olympics, and even the most steel-nerved of athletes can get a little un-nerved.

"I probably have more butterflies than I've ever had in my life," O'Brien said. "But this is something you've been waiting for all your life. You have a chance to do what you've been waiting to do. You just have to go out and do it."

O'Brien said she is counting on the experience she's gained in three trips to the CWS to help her get over the Olympic butterflies. And there is no denying the fact that she will have plenty of highlights to look back on.

As a freshman in 1993, she drove in the only run in Arizona's 1-0 victory over No. 1-ranked UCLA in the CWS championship game.

In 1994, O'Brien had three hits and scored two runs as the Wildcats successfully defended their title.

"She's a gamer," Arizona head coach Mike Candrea said. "She always controls her energies in a positive way."

The biggest difference in the international game is the distance of the pitching circle to the plate.

A couple of years ago, the NCAA moved the pitching circle from its original 40 feet to 43 feet from the plate in an effort to produce a more offensive game. The international rules still call for the 40-foot distance.

"It's harder," O'Brien said. "Especially since you only get one look at a pitcher."

"They are some gifted athletes, and they will adjust accordingly," Candrea said.

The 21-year-old O'Brien is just one of three players on the team not to have completed her college eligibility (Fresno State's Laura Berg and UCLA-recruit Sheila Cornell are the others). With three UCLA players on the team and UCLA's Sue Enquist on the coaching staff, familiarity with her teammates will not be a problem for O'Brien.

"We played in Australia, so we all pretty much know each other," she said. "The experience from them helps out, too."

Arizona head coach Mike Candrea has said that the talent pool of softball players in the U.S. is so deep that it could field three teams and win gold, silver and bronze - something that made the fight for the 15 spots all the more fierce.

"They pretty much get in there and swing away and drive the ball," Hill said. "Because Leah can do those things, she made it."