For Retired Olympians, Marketing Is the Game
New York Times – August 11, 2008
Stephanie Clifford
Nadia Comaneci and Mark Spitz are endorsing Botox. The soccer player Julie Foudy is promoting Cabot cheese and Kleenex, and the track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee is working with Medco, the health benefits manager. One swimmer, Janet Evans, is with John Hancock, while another, Josh Davis, is with Mutual of Omaha.
The Olympics are not just moneymakers for the current athletes, but for former ones as well. Even for the alumni, the ability to cash in on one’s former fame peaks every four years, because corporate sponsors prefer to work with athletes when their signature sports are in the news.
What Ever Happened to… OLYMPIC GYMNASTS
U.S. Weekly – August 11, 2008
Sarah Grossbart
THEN Dawes was the first African-American to medal in an individual event in the sport when she nabbed bronze in the floor competition in 1996 – after stumbling doing the same routine in the all-team section. “I got a second chance,” she tells¬†Us.
NOW After her win, the single Rockville, Maryland resident, 31, appeared in music videos for Prince and Missy Elliott and now travels the country as a motivational speaker, coaching kids on weekends. One thing in her carry-on? Her medals. “I checked my laptop recently, and it was stolen,” she says. “So I always take my medals on the plane.”
U.S. spirit and experience is key: Dawes
Reuters – August 8, 2008
Sonia Oxley
BEIJING (Reuters) – The U.S. women hoping for a first Olympic team gold on foreign soil have the advantage of more experience and unity than the “Magnificent Seven”, one of those 1996 champions Dominique Dawes said on Friday.
Dawes was a member of the team that unexpectedly overcame the dominant Russians and Romanians to clinch the Americans’ first Olympic team title on the home soil of Atlanta 12 years ago.
Dawes’ golden gleam hasn’t worn
A dozen years after she and her teammates captured gold and America’s hearts, the Silver Spring native is still inspiring
Baltimore Sun – August 3, 2008
By Candus Thomson, Sun reporter
Magnificent.
A dozen years after Dominique Dawes and her six teammates on the U.S. women’s gymnastics squad had the nickname hung on them like the Olympic gold medal they won, people still bestow it on her.
At 31, she still looks, well, magnificent. Slim and well-muscled, she appears as though she could still fit into the red-white-and-blue leotard she wore in helping the Magnificent Seven collect the team gold medal and win an individual bronze medal in floor exercise in Atlanta.
“Fit into it? No, I can’t. I could maybe squeeze into it,” she says, laughing and drawing out the word squeeze. “Besides, the Smithsonian has it.”
Memory Games: While an Olympic competition sometimes takes just minutes, the afterglow can last a lifetime.
Washington Post Magazine – July 27, 2008
Interviews by Christina Breda Antoniades | 2008 Photos by Keith Barraclough | Audio by Whitney Shefte
MAKING HISTORY [IN 1996] BY BEING THE FIRST U.S. WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS TEAM TO WIN GOLD — it was an amazing moment. After, we were on tour for nearly two years, and the fans treated us like rock stars. Then I did “Grease” on Broadway — I was Patty Simcox — and moved home [to Montgomery County] and started school at College Park.
In January 2000, I called my coach and said, “I have this crazy idea.” I had been in economics class daydreaming about making the Olympic team. I was 23. Part of me was hoping she would say, “Give it up.” But she said, “I want to see you at practice tomorrow.” I had not worked out in over a year. It was embarrassing — an Olympic gold medalist who was not able to do the basic tricks anymore. Even swinging on the bars was hard because I had lost all the callouses on my hands. I’d started gymnastics when I was 6, but it wasn’t until I had to learn it all again that I realized, “This is hard.” I gained a whole new respect for [it].
Love Yourself First
An Olympian’s pursuit of healthy self-esteem
Ebony Magazine – May 2008
By Dominique Dawes
As a gymnast with an Olympic gold medal to hang around my neck, three Olympic Games in my repertoire and my team’s picture on the front of a Wheaties box, I had it all. Or so it seemed to the outside world.
But the gymnast that people around the world saw on TV back in 1996 – a strong, confident, mature athlete – was not the same person I saw and felt from the inside. Despite having reached so many of my goals and having achieved what others would consider great success, at 19 years old, I was struggling with a lifetime of self-esteem issues.
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Pushing perfection
Olympic gold medalist Dawes inspires local gymnasts to work hard
Delmarva Times – July 8, 2008
By Tim Brennan
Staff Writer
BERLIN — Somersaults, cartwheels and round-offs filled Twisters Gymnastics on Monday. This wasn’t much different from any other day of the week, but what was a bit out of the ordinary was the presence of an Olympic gold medalist.
Dominique Dawes, who earned gold and bronze at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, was on hand for a clinic, helping some 30 young gymnasts aging from 6 to 13 years old.
“When they were standing in line (before the clinic) I heard one of the girls say she didn’t sleep all night,” Twisters co-owner Fran Fennell said.
Olympian: Good trip the goal
Ex-gymnast Dawes urges achievers to prize journey
Albany (NY) Times Union – June 14, 2008
By RYAN HAYNER, Special to the Times Union
First published: Saturday, June 14, 2008
ALBANY — When Dominique Dawes started competing in gymnastics at the age of 10, her coach, Kelli Hill, told her “Success is a journey, not just a destination.”
Dawes didn’t know what Hill was trying to tell her. Hill repeated the quote when Dawes participated in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. Again, it didn’t sink in.
Former Olympic gymnast thinks highly of Gary
Gary Indiana Post Tribune
(http://www.post-trib.com/news/neighbors/923334,dawes.article)
May 1, 2008
By Lisa DeNeal Post-Tribune correspondent
Dominique Dawes laughed softly when told that a photo of her in the prime of her Olympic gold- and bronze-medal winning glory hangs on the Wall of Fame at Dolly’s Restaurant in Gary.
Although she was born in Silver Spring, Md., Dawes said she feels a connection to Gary.
“There may be some relatives in Gary,” she said in a recent phone interview, “or it may have to do with Gary having been one of the tour stops for the 1996 Olympics team. Either way, I am not going to deny a Gary connection.”¬†Read more…
Catching up with Dawes
The Gazette
(http://www.gazette.net/stories/022708/damaspo210355_32361.shtml)
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008
by Dan Greenberg | Staff Writer
It’s just past 6 a.m. when Rockville resident Dominique Dawes steps into the Takoma Aquatic and Community Center in northwest Washington, D.C., ready to get to work. You probably know the name — she is one of the greatest athletes to ever come out of Montgomery County, a gold-medal winner and the only three-time member of the United States Gymnastics Olympic team.
But ‚Äò‚ÄòAwesome Dawesome‚Äù looks a little different these days. She doesn‚Äôt wear a leotard to work; today it‚Äôs a dress coat and slacks. It‚Äôs been eight years since her competitive career ended, and her days no longer revolve around dismounts and summersaults.¬†Read more…
All About The Attitude
Albany (Ga.) Herald
http://www.albanyherald.com/archives/Sports/2008/sports022208g.html
February 22, 2008
Scott Chancey
ALBANY — Although Thursday marked Dominique Dawes’ first visit to Albany, it was by no means her first visit to Georgia.
Going through Atlanta brings back a lifetime of memories created in a span of just more than two weeks, when she was part of the 1996 Olympics gold medal-winning U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team, earning an individual bronze in the floor exercise in the Georgia Dome.
‚ÄúIt‚Äôs always good to go back and reminisce over the Olympic memories that happened 12 years ago, it really shaped my life tremendously,‚Äù said Dawes, who was also a member of the 1992 and 2000 teams, winning a bronze in 1992.¬†Read more…
Catching up with Dominique Dawes
ESPN.com
February 22, 2008
by Mary Buckheit
You remember Dominique Dawes. Even if you know nothing about gymnastics, you probably know the name or can recall the face.
In 1996, at the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, the U.S. women won their first gymnastics team gold. The feat was punctuated by Kerri Strug’s dramatic one-footed landing on the vault to seal the victory.
Because of that famous injury, Strug, the first qualifier for the individual floor competition, pulled out of the finals for that event, which opened the door for her teammate, Dominique Dawes.
Dawes, a 19-year-old from Silver Spring, Md., capitalized on the opportunity with this performance and nabbed bronze, thus becoming the first African-American ever to win an individual event medal in gymnastics.¬†Read more…
