Dominique Dawes

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Women's Artistic Gymnastics
Olympic medal record
Gold	1996 Atlanta	Team competition
Bronze	1992 Barcelona	Team competition
Bronze	1996 Atlanta	Floor exercise

Dominique Margaux Dawes (born November 20, 1976, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is a United States gymnast. She was a long time member of the national team, and a three-time Olympian for the U.S. A graduate of the University of Maryland, she now serves as President of the Women's Sports Foundation.

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Dominique was first introduced to gymnastics at age six, when she signed up for a tumbling class. When she showed up, the class was canceled, and someone suggested to her parents that she take a class at a local gymnastics club called Hill's Angels. It was at this club where Dominique met her one and only coach Kelli Hill. Dominique first made a splash as a pint-sized 14-year-old during a USA dual meet. Dominique received a racous standing ovation after an energetic floor routine in which she reincarnated the back-to-back tumbling revolutionized by Soviet star Oksana Omelianchik. The judges were equally impressed, and gave her a perfect 10.

Though she was not part of the 1991 World Championship team, Dominique continued to move up on the national and international scene throughout 1991 and 1992. The extremely crowd pleasing athlete made the Olympic team easily in 1992, despite battling very painful tendonitis in both ankles. Dominique performed respectably throughout the competition, even having the boldness to try a brand-new move in the team competition--backhandspring to three layout stepouts on beam. She also won over the crowd with a solid floor routine, and put up the highest score for her team on that event. The team won bronze, and Dominique alongside Betty Okino became the first black females to win an Olympic gymnastics medal.

Though Dominique was a solid team player in 1992, she did not breakthrough as an all-around gymnast until 1993. Indeed, she is probably best known for her performances at the 1993 and 1994 World Championships. In 1993, Dominique led the competition after three events, even beating her more famous teammate Shannon Miller. Then, showing the same boldness that she had in 1992, she decided to try her harder vault (1 1/2 twisting layout Yurchenko) which was worth a 10.00 instead of simply a full-twisting layout Yurchenko which had been devalued to a 9.8. She made the first vault, but slipped and fell on the second, immediately bursting into tears. With the new rule that both vaults were averaged in all-around competition, her fall dropped her to 4th overall while Miller won the title. Dominique rebounded in the event finals, winning two silver medals on bars and beam.

Eerily, the same fate befell her in 1994. Leading after three events, she again came to vault with a chance of winning the title. Uncharacteristically, Dominique completely botched her first vault by overrotating and hurling forward into a somersault. Her low score dropped her to 5th. This time, however, Dominique's uncharacteristic mistakes continued throughout the event finals and left the championships without winning a single medal. Dominique would finish her year on a positive note, however. She dominated the National Championships sweeping the all-around and all four event finals at the expense of rival Shannon Miller. Dominique then went on to lead the American team to a silver medal at the World Team Championships in Dortmund, Germany, posting the third highest all-around score in the process.

Dominique struggled through a difficult 1995, riddled by wrist and ankle injuries. She finished 4th at Nationals, and was forced to sit out the World Championships that year. She rebounded in 1996 doing some of the best gymnastics of her career. Though her results were spotty, she finished 1st at the Olympic trials to make her second Olympic team at age 19.

The team, later nicknamed Magnificent 7, dominated the team competition. A key member of the team, Dominique performed without serious error and was the only team member to have all eight of her scores count towards the total. Along with Shannon Miller, Jaycie Phelps, Dominique Moceanu, Amanda Borden, Amy Chow and Kerri Strug, Dominique claimed her gold medal as part of the first, last and only American team to take the Olympic title.

Later in the week, however, Dominique lost yet another opportunity to win a major all-around title. Going into the AA competition, Dominique was considered one of the heavy favorites to medal. In fact, she had amassed the second highest total during the Team optionals, and was the highest ranked American in that portion of the competition. Dominique led the competition after two rotations, but on her middle tumbling pass on floor, she underrotated for fear that she might step out of bounds. She sat down the tumbling pass and finished 17th. She finished just out of the medals on uneven bars, but redeemed herself by winning bronze in floor exercise finals, her first World Championship or Olympic medal in what had long been considered her best event.

Dominique reveled in her team's success, performing in several post-Olympic tours with her teammates, as well as landing a role in a Broadway production of Grease. She returned to competition at the 1998 Goodwill Games, although her rare appearances in competition did not suggest that she was serious about making the Olympic team in 2000. However, she surprised everyone with stunning performances at Nationals, Olympic trials, and the training camps, and made her third Olympic team. Though her performances were up and down, she competed respectfully en route to a 4th place team finish.

Dominique to date is the only American female gymnast to compete in three Olympics. Indeed only a handful of gymnasts worldwide have accomplished this feat, including Ludmilla Tourischeva, Svetlana Boginskaya and Svetlana Khorkina. Her explosive tumbling and energetic style earned her the nickname "Awesome Dawesome." She graduated with her Bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002.

Dawes joined the Advisory Board of Sesame Workshop's "Healthy Habits for Life" program and serves as President of the Women's Sports Federation.

[edit] Skills

Vault: 1.5 twisting Yurchenko
Balance Beam: Backflip followed by 3 Layout stepouts, Two backflips to Full-in dismount
Floor Exercise: Double layout, Whip 2.5 Punch Front, Piked Full-in Back Out. Her music for floor routines was:
- 1994: Malaguena by Ernesto Lecuona
- 1996: Fantasy Quick (Jordan Edit)

[edit] Trivia

Dominique Dawes was the first gymnast (male or female) to introduce the double tumbling pass on the floor excercise. In this series of maneuvers she would execute a series of sommersaults diagonal one way down the floor mat, then instantly change direction to continue flipping in the opposite direction. This was one of Dominique's signature moves that often generated loud applause from the audience.

Parents are Don and Loretta Dawes

Has and older sister, Danielle and a younger brother Don Jr.

As of 2005, Dawes gives private lessons on Sundays at her home gym, Hill's Gymnastics.

Dawes is featured in Missy Elliott's 2006 video "We run this" as Missy's gymnastics coach.

Dominique Dawes' flipping ability has been used as the root metaphor in hiphop by such artists as Ras Kass ("It's a Given", 12")and The Hit Squad ("International", Zero Tolerance).

Hobbies: Cooking, going to movies, singing, acting

Attended the University of Maryland

Attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland and Gaithersburg High School in Gaithersburg, Maryland

She is also pursuing a career in acting, modeling and television production.

Appeared in the Broadway hit Grease, in the Disney television show "The Jersey" and in Princ's music video entitled "Betcha By Golly Wow."

Dated Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter for a short time.