Biography of US Gymnast Dominique Dawes

Young Gymnast Tumbles into America's Hearts

Born November 20, 1976 in Silver Spring, Maryland, Dominique Dawes would soon become on of America’s great gymnasts, combining high jumps with a verve rarely seen in other gymnasts.

The fearless spirit of Dominique Dawes was present, even from a young age, when she began gymnastics quite on accident.  When a local tumbling program was full, the young Dawes ended up at Hill’s Angels (later known as Hill’s Gymnastics), a local gymnastics club that would become a central point in her life.  Here the spunky Dawes would, over the next 8 years, perfect her craft, largely outside of formal competition.

Dominique began her adult (non-juniors) gymnastic career in 1990, and two years later, she qualified for a spot on the 1992 Olympic team.  She performed solidly and helped lead the American team to an overall Bronze metal.  The next few years of Dominique's career showed problems with the vault, as Dawes would perform one of the pair of vaults perfectly, only to botch the other in competition, knocking her out of first place on more than one occasion.  Despite this shortcoming, Dawes made an amazing comeback, giving one of the strongest gymnastics performances ever seen at the World Team Championships in 1994.  1995 was a year riddled with injury for the 18-year old gymnast, but after sitting out competitions and healing, Dawes was ready to return to gymnastics.  She finished first at the 1996 Olympic trials and went on (with teammates Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Kerri Strug, Amy Chow, Amanda Borden and Jaycie Phelps) to become part of the "Magnificent 7," America's gold-winning 1996 Olympic Women's Gymnastics team.  Dawes and her teammates became the first team to unseat the Russians, who had won Olympic gold in the event since they began competing.