Dominique Dawes Quotes

Dominique Dawes — American Athlete born on November 20, 1976,

Dominique Margaux Dawes is a retired American artistic gymnast. Known in the gymnastics community as 'Awesome Dawesome,' she was a 10-year member of the U.S. national gymnastics team, the 1994 U.S. all-around senior National Champion, a three-time Olympian, a World Championships silver medalist and a member of the gold-medal winning "Magnificent Seven" at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Dawes is also notable as being the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic medal in artistic gymnastics, and the first black person of any nationality or gender to win an Olympic gold medal in gymnastics. She is also one of only three female American gymnasts, along with Muriel Grossfeld and Linda Metheny-Mulvihill, to compete in three Olympics and was part of three Olympic medal-winning teams: Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, and Sydney 2000. Dawes is the first female gymnast to be a part of three Olympic medal winning teams since Lyudmila Turischeva won gold in Mexico City, Munich, and Montreal. Since Dawes, Svetlana Khorkina is the only gymnast to accomplish this feat, winning silver in Atlanta and Sydney and bronze in Athens... (wikipedia)

I realized I love motivating and I love empowering and I love inspiring people. I did that as an athlete for 18 years, and I am able to do that as a motivational speaker now as well as doing work on television.

Eleven years old is not an early age to set your sight on the Olympics for a gymnast, because we normally peak in high school. I first qualified for the Olympics team during my sophomore year in high school, when I was 15 years old.

I think in any industry, it is competitive. There are a certain number of slots out there and opportunities out there. So you need to make sure that you're always on the top of your toes, trying to get better.

A lot of people don't know the USOC is not government funded and they are always looking for support from sponsors.

I love athletics. As an athlete, I like to believe I can still do the things I used to do when I was once young.