Jennie Finch might be known as a front page model of magazines or a celebrity among the 50-most-beautiful chosen by the Americans.

But when the American blonde comes to Beijing for the Olympics, she is a softball player, one of the world's ace pitchers who helped the U.S. team win the third straight Olympic gold in Athens.

"It boils down to just being the best you can be," said the 28-year-old looking into the upcoming sports gala, which might be the last Olympics for softball, as the sport is about to lose its identity in 2012.

"That's really the only thing we can do to...I'm going to put my trust in the game itself," she said.

Born in La Mirada, California, Finch started playing softball when she was five years old and played as pitcher since she was eight. Her first coach was his father, Doug Finch, who invented the Finch Windmill, an arm conditioning device that has been selling for more than a decade.

Finch showed her talent in the sport when she was at the University of Arizona. She became a three-time All-American pitcher and set an NCAA record with 60 wins in a row without losses.

At the Athens Olympics, she posted a 2-0 win-loss tally, striking out 13 batters in eight innings while giving up only one hit, one walk and no runs so as to lift the USA team to top of the podium.

Later, Jennie Finch married pitcher Casey Daigle on January 15, 2005, and the couple had their son, Ace, on May 4, 2006.

Just as the talented pitcher was at the summit of her career, news that softball, which had been added to the Olympic schedule in 1996 was dropped from the 2012 London Games came like a bolt in the blue. Total domination of the United States in the sport and lake of worldwide appeal were cited as the reason.

"It was a heartbreak to us all," Finch was quoted in a Reuters interview. "It was a blow to the heart. Kind of feels like we got punched in the stomach." she said.

Therefore, the Olympic gold medal bears special significance.

During the 60-game pre-Olympic tour of the USA team that reached every corner of the country since February, the pinup pitcher played in a highest 118.2 innings with 11 complete games.

To Finch, who had always been advocating for a return of softball, outstanding performance in the Beijing Olympics is a way to showcase that the sport belongs to the Olympics and make the International Olympic Committee officials realize "it is a mistake" to exclude the sport from Olympic calendar.

"Why we play this game," she said, "is to continue to build opportunities, and continue to encourage them (softball fans) to dream and believe. But if they do not have anything to dream about, what is there?"

(Xinhua News Agency August 1, 2008)