More than any single competition, an Olympic ad I saw the other day sums up what the Tokyo Olympics were all about for the U.S.

The ad opens up to the strains of “There She is, Miss America,” the beauty pageant song, as a women boxer tapes up her fingers and another athlete applies eye black.

Next, the words “There she is, your ideal” trill in the background as a woman runner with an artificial leg strides by.

And finally, “Fairest of the fair, she is” plays in lilting voiceover as a female weightlifter jerk presses a few hundred pounds with a joyous grimace.

In other words, forget societal expectations. In the 2021 Olympics, strength was feminine. Power was feminine. Sheer badassery was feminine.

Setting records and breaking barriers, American women took the games by storm this year, sending the message once and forever that from now on, Miss America will take what is rightfully hers.

As of Thursday, American women had collected 55 medals. If they were their own country, they’d rank 4th in the world by themselves. 

“I have a grin from ear to ear,” said Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the Colorado Springs-based United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “The performance of American women in Tokyo is an amazing indicator of what the future holds for women athletes and for our country.”

We’ve come a way.

In the first modern Olympics in 1896, women weren’t allowed to compete.

French historian Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the International Olympics Committee in 1894, said women playing sports was “against the laws of nature.”

This year, Tokyo featured near gender equity: 49 percent of the athletes were women, up from 44 percent in Rio in 2016 and 38 percent in Sydney in 2000, according to the IOC.

On the American team, women dominated: 329 women to 284 men.

In fact, the U.S. Olympic roster breaks the record for most women to represent a nation at a single Games, and Tokyo marks the third straight Olympics in which American women outnumbered men.

Those numbers are no accident. In fact, you can thank Colorado Springs in part for those numbers.

Ever since the USOPC was rocked by athlete abuse scandals, including the horrific offenses by team doctor Larry Nassar, CEO Hirshland has been on a mission to put athlete health first and pursue gender equity and better diversity in all sorts of ways.

First, she renamed the USOC to USOPC to raise up the importance of paralympians in the organization, and three paralympians are now on the board.

Then she put a raft of women in high positions within the USOPC: Chief Financial Officer Morane Keerek; Chief Strategy and Growth Officer Katie Bynum; Chief Security and Athlete Safety Officer Nicole Deal; and Chief Development Officer Christine Walshe. The chair of the USOPC board is also a woman, Susanne Lyons.

I asked Hirshfield if having those women in administrative positions helps change the culture.

“Of course it does,” she said. “Both genders are thought about more equally now” within the whole Olympic movement. “You understand the nuances better” with more women driving the train, she said. For example, because of COVID, athletes are without family members in Tokyo, and for breast-feeding moms who are there on their own, that raises a whole set of unique challenges. “Women in leadership roles who have been there, that is a valuable tool” in figuring out how to accommodate those moms, said Hirshland. “Having their voices makes you better.”

We’re also seeing the results of a years-long cycle of encouraging more women to participate in a broader range of sports.

“It starts with access to sport,” said Hirshland. “When you have that in a meaningful way, you’re going to see elite athletes happen.”

We also learned something of feminine power during these Olympics from Simone Biles, who taught us that no one can take away a person’s power to decide what is best for herself, even if that means she will not compete.

Hirshland sees Biles’ decision as a sign of progress for the USOPC in taking care of its athletes.

“One of the greatest compliments we could be paid is that Simore felt safe enough to make that choice,” she said. “That took an insane amount of bravery, and I think it shows we are on the right path.” The incident sends a powerful message, Hirshland believes, that mental health and physical health are not mutually exclusive. “We’ve got a long way to go,” Hirshland said, but the trajectory is good. 

Biles echoed that during an NBC interview. “We’re not just athletes or entertainment, we’re human, too. 

“Put your mental health first,” she told future competitors. “That’s more important than any medal you might win.”

A tough-as-nails athlete from Colorado Springs sent a parallel message to future sister athletes last week.

When Tamyra Mensah-Stock defeated Nigeria’s Blessing Oborududu 4-1 in the women’s 68-kilogram freestyle wrestling final on Tuesday, she became the first American Black woman to win Olympic gold in wrestling.

“These young women are going to see themselves in a number of ways and they’re going to look up there and go, I can do that,” she said afterwards. “I can see myself.”

They might even start to sing: “There she is, Miss America.”