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DOMINIQUE DAWES
Official website: www.dominiquedawes.com
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.
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 raucous 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 tendinitis in both ankles.
Dominique performed respectably throughout the competition, even having the boldness to try a brand-new move in the team competition —
back handspring 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
African American 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 over rotating 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 1996 U.S. Olympic team, later nicknamed the "Magnificent Seven," 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 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, with
Shannon Miller right behind her. Miller had a major mistake on her floor routine, knocking
her out of the medals. On the middle tumbling pass of Dawes's floor routine, she under-rotated for fear that she might step out of bounds.
She sat down the tumbling pass and finished 17th. NBC cameras zoomed in on Dawes, sitting in tears as her score from floor exercise was
announced. 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 Boguinskaya and
Svetlana Khorkina. Her explosive tumbling and energetic style earned her the nickname "Awesome Dawesome."
Dawes attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland and Gaithersburg High School in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where she was
the 1994 prom queen. She graduated with her Bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002.
Pursuing a career in acting, modeling and television production, she has appeared in Prince's music video "Betcha By Golly Wow" and
Missy Elliott's 2006 video "We Run This" in the role of Missy's gymnastics coach. Her flipping ability has been used as the root metaphor
in hip-hop songs by such artists as Ras Kass ("It's a Given," 12")and The Hit Squad ("International," Zero Tolerance).
Dawes is presently on the Advisory Board of Sesame Workshop's "Healthy Habits for Life" program and served as President of the
Women's Sports Foundation from 2004— 2006.
She also gives private lessons at her home gym, Hill's Gymnastics.
For more information, visit her
biography at www.usa-gymnastics.org or her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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