When Dominique Dawes competed in the Olympic trials for the 1992 Barcelona Games, she was the first Black gymnast to ever qualify. Three decades later, 80% of the U.S.
women’s Olympic gymnastics team competing in Paris are women of color, making it the most racially diverse in the team’s history. “To see now, 32 years later, women of color dominating the sport of gymnastics definitely gives me reason to at least know that the sport is becoming a little bit more inclusive,” Dawes said. She went on to compete in three consecutive Olympic Games and win four Olympic medals, including a historic team gold medal with the “Magnificent Seven” at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
The financial and social hurdles that have long shut out Black athletes from gymnastics are beginning to come down. And now, women of color occupy gymnastics’ rarest air. At last year’s world championships, three Black women took all three spots on the all-around podium: Simone Biles , Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and Shilese Jones .
The last three Olympic all-around gold medalists — Suni Lee, Biles and Gabby Douglas — have all been American women of color, with Douglas becoming the first Black gymnast to win the event at the 2012 London Olympics. This year, Black women made up a third of the U.S.
senior women’s national team, and in 2022, Black women swept the all-around medals at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.
Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Jordan Chiles was the national bronze medalist in 202.