Thirty Years After Olympic Gold, Dominique Dawes Is Still Changing Gymnastics

Brandon Tensley, CapitalB

Through her academies, she hopes to build a happier, more inclusive vision of gymnastics — one rooted in fun and community as much as competition.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland — Thirty years ago this summer, Dominique Dawes beamed atop an Olympic podium in Atlanta, clutching a bouquet and waving to the crowd that had packed inside the Georgia Dome. Minutes later, she placed a hand over her heart as the national anthem played. 

She was celebrating a first: The 19-year-old from Maryland had just helped the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win a gold medal, a feat that had never been achieved before.

Dawes also became the first Black American woman to take home an individual Olympic medal in the sport. She and her “Magnificent Seven” teammates soon appeared on a box of Wheaties, a staple of kitchens across the country and another sign that Dawes had been immortalized in gymnastics lore.

At least, this is how many Americans remember the story. Dawes recalls something more complicated: a victory laced with disappointment, including a mistake on floor, her signature event. And as happy as she was to have won gold in Atlanta — a city once again gearing up to host a global sporting spectacle as the World Cup begins this month — the medal also was a reminder of the harsh culture that she had endured to earn it.

Since then, Dawes, 49, has sought to remake the culture of the sport that turned her into a household name. Through her network of Dominique Dawes Academies in Georgia, Maryland, Texas, and Virginia, she’s trying to establish a new vision of gymnastics: one that prizes health, community, and joy as much as excellence and is more welcoming to girls of all backgrounds, especially Black girls, who have often been left on the margins. Her project, at its core, is an attempt to transform a sport that’s long been organized around individual achievement and cutthroat competition.

Learn how the athlete and mother is trying to do things differently.

Another talented gymnast, Jordan Chiles, wrote about the racism she experienced in her sport.

More Black sports and culture news.