Dominique Dawes is a three-time former U.S. Olympic gymnast and was a 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team and part of the gold-medal-winning “Magnificent Seven” team at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.
Dawes recently opened her first gymnastics training academy in Clarksburg, Maryland to prove that there is a way to care for children and put the healthy minds and bodies of kids first in contrast to what she calls a culture of abuse that still exists in competitive gymnastics in this country.
Dawes left her home at age 11 to move in with her coach, and doesn’t want other kids to lose their childhood and their identity in the name of perfection on the Olympic podium.