Dominique Dawes

One-by-one, Dominique Dawes straightened the young gymnasts as they struck a pose on the balance beam. "Stomach in. Hips are squared. The body is lean and tight," she told 9-year-old Christina Riggins, who was striking a graceful pose on the balance beam with her arms outstretched and forming a V. Christina quickly adjusted her position, her face tensed with concentration. Once the girls struck their positions on the 4-inch wide beam, Dawes pushed them. Christina teetered for a moment, then slipped off the beam.

Maryland native to urge Americans to get outside,eat smart Three-time Olympian Dominique Dawes already practices what she preaches. At 33, she still looks like the gymnast who was a member of the gold medal "Magnificent Seven" team at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. She teaches gymnastics and tours as a motivational speaker. On Aug. 11, Dawes and the other members of the 2000 women's gymnastics squad will be awarded the Olympic bronze team medal, which was stripped from the Chinese team for using an under-aged athlete.

A hush fell over the packed room at City Hall as Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley made the long-anticipated announcement of finalist cities to be host to the 2012 Summer Olympics. "I'm excited to report that one of the finalists is ... San Francisco," the mayor said yesterday, just minutes after getting word from the U.S. Olympic Committee that the eight candidates had been narrowed to four. But the silence was broken by cheers, applause and high-fives from government officials, athletes and Olympic bid committee members when O'Malley announced the last of four finalists - "the greatest bid of all - the Baltimore-Washington region.

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?

GAITHERSBURG -- She is no longer the shy little girl from Montgomery County who seemed younger than her age, no longer the latest in a recent line of America's pixie gymnasts.She is no longer the 15-year-old who made her first Olympic team or the 17-year-old who won her first U.S. championship.Dominique Dawes is all grown up, with one place left to go before she calls it a career: Atlanta for the 1996 Olympic Games.Recovered from the injuries that sapped her confidence and sidelined her for last year's world championships, rejuvenated by the months she spent going to classes and living in a dorm at the University of Maryland, and very much relieved to be finished with a nerve-racking but successful performance in the recent Olympic trials, Dawes has reinvented herself.

Congratulations to Dominique Dawes of Silver Spring and Gaithersburg High, who swept the gold medals in all-around and in all four events at the U.S. National Gymnastics championships at Nashville. First time anyone had in 25 years.Shannon Miller, the Olympic and world champion, had to be content with five silvers. Dominique, the tiny dynamo from Montgomery County, who has rewritten the definition of the possible in the floor exercise tumbling run, is No. 1. The two are pretty mature at 17. Whether to persevere to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 is an agonizing question.

BARCELONA, Spain -- Dominique Dawes placed the bronze medal in her sweat suit pocket, and clutched the bouquet of white roses in her tiny hands.She had traveled the longest road in the world of gymnastics, from a converted game room at a Best Western on the outskirts of the Capital Beltway in Maryland, to the third-place team podium at the 1992 Summer Olympics."

BARCELONA, Spain -- After a trials, a tryout camp and a final workout, six tiny women will be paraded into a cafe today and presented as the final, official, and complete U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.Michele Campi, who missed the trials with a fractured right elbow and was slowed by a pulled hamstring muscle, is expected to be the odd woman out and given the alternate position.Kim Zmeskal, of Houston, the 1991 all-around world champion, and Shannon Miller, of Edmond, Okla., the winner of the trials, are expected to lead the American team.

NEW ORLEANS -- When she had finished her last routine in the all-around competition of the 1995 national championships Friday night at the Louisiana Superdome, Dominique Dawes could hold back no longer.It had been a long year for the gymnast from Gaithersburg, one filled with injuries and inconsistent results. So as the television camera focused on her, Dawes did something that many hadn't seen her do in a while.She cried."My beam routine made me upset," Dawes said later.Dawes had much different emotions last night -- and much different results.

Today:Hot-Air Balloon Competition (6: 30 a.m.-8 a.m.): Balloon competition and liftoff from Druid Hill Park (Exit 7 off I-83 near the Baltimore Zoo). Free.FILA 5K Preakness Run (post time: 8 a.m.): The fourth-annual event starts at Rash Field in the Inner Harbor. Call 410-377-8882 for a race application. Entry fees $15 in advance and $20 on race day.The Baltimore Sun Preakness Parade (10 a.m.-noon): This year's lineup includes U.S. Olympic gold medalists Dominique Dawes (gymnastics) and Beth Botsford (swimming)

One-by-one, Dominique Dawes straightened the young gymnasts as they struck a pose on the balance beam. "Stomach in. Hips are squared. The body is lean and tight," she told 9-year-old Christina Riggins, who was striking a graceful pose on the balance beam with her arms outstretched and forming a V. Christina quickly adjusted her position, her face tensed with concentration. Once the girls struck their positions on the 4-inch wide beam, Dawes pushed them. Christina teetered for a moment, then slipped off the beam.

A hush fell over the packed room at City Hall as Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley made the long-anticipated announcement of finalist cities to be host to the 2012 Summer Olympics. "I'm excited to report that one of the finalists is ... San Francisco," the mayor said yesterday, just minutes after getting word from the U.S. Olympic Committee that the eight candidates had been narrowed to four. But the silence was broken by cheers, applause and high-fives from government officials, athletes and Olympic bid committee members when O'Malley announced the last of four finalists - "the greatest bid of all - the Baltimore-Washington region.

SYDNEY, Australia - Dominique Dawes has played Broadway, starred in a Prince video and been to college. She has a boyfriend, owns a home and gives motivational speeches to business leaders. And in a sport still dominated by sprite-like teen tumblers, she's something of an old-timer at 23. Somehow, some way, she has made it back, all the way back, to her third Olympics, where she is out to help the U.S. women's gymnastics team win a medal. "Yes, I'm more mature and experienced, but I still get the jitters and nerves," she said.

BOSTON - Columbia gymnast Elise Ray had just accepted the crystal trophy and the bouquet of flowers that came with her place on the newly selected U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team when national team coordinator Bela Karolyi unexpectedly handed her something a little heavier. The mantle of leadership. The six-woman team that emerged from the U.S. Olympic Gymnastic Team Trials at Boston's FleetCenter includes two Olympic veterans - Amy Chow and Silver Spring's Dominique Dawes - but Karolyi didn't hesitate when he was asked who might fill an apparent leadership gap. He chose an 18-year-old with great competitive credentials and no Olympic experience.

GAITHERSBURG - The first thing you notice is that they don't notice. A strain of "Swan Lake" collides mid-air with a Latin samba and Pink Floyd's "Money." But the female gymnasts who are Maryland's Olympic hopefuls seem to hear only the bars that measure out the rhythms of their particular routines. Hill's Gym is 22,000 square feet, with approximately 40-foot ceilings, but during a recent practice, it is filled with activity. At the ballet barre, a small group of students practices footwork.

Today:Hot-Air Balloon Competition (6: 30 a.m.-8 a.m.): Balloon competition and liftoff from Druid Hill Park (Exit 7 off I-83 near the Baltimore Zoo). Free.FILA 5K Preakness Run (post time: 8 a.m.): The fourth-annual event starts at Rash Field in the Inner Harbor. Call 410-377-8882 for a race application. Entry fees $15 in advance and $20 on race day.The Baltimore Sun Preakness Parade (10 a.m.-noon): This year's lineup includes U.S. Olympic gold medalists Dominique Dawes (gymnastics) and Beth Botsford (swimming)

Jessica Sullivan and her two older sisters, Katie and Stephanie, did what many other Americans did when the U.S. women's gymnastics squad won a team gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta: They watched every flip, tumble and somersault with wide-eyed amazement."

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?

It's a moment that Dominique Dawes will not allow to haunt her. So Dawes will tell you there's really no need to watch the tapes of her all-around floor exercise from the 1996 Olympics. No need to reflect on the moment when, with the gold medal within her grasp, she stepped out of bounds. No need to shed any more tears than were shed that night, a night when many cried along with her."There's no need to watch something that I already did. I saw it, I was there," Dawes said last week. "I don't sit around and reflect on that.

Jessica Sullivan and her two older sisters, Katie and Stephanie, did what many other Americans did when the U.S. women's gymnastics squad won a team gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta: They watched every flip, tumble and somersault with wide-eyed amazement."