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Olympic vet Dominique Dawes is thrilled that gymnastics has finally stuck the landing when it comes to prioritizing athlete health.
For starters, "There is a discussion now about mental health, whereas back in the 80s and 90s, there was no discussion about it," the gymnast, who last stepped on the mat for Team USA at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, told E! News in an exclusive interview. "If you did have issues, like mental blocks, or if you had emotional breakdowns, you were considered mental and it was talked about in a very negative way."
So add finding ways to deal with the almost unbearable pressure of making the podium to the long list of skills the U.S. national team vet displayed en route to collecting three bronze medals throughout her career, plus team gold with the Magnificent Seven at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
"It is a part of life that you're going to go through emotional and mental rollercoasters," explained the athlete, whose back-to-back tumbling passes earned her that Awesome Dawesome nickname, "and you need to be able to have support systems that are safe individuals where you can open up to them and also tell yourself to take a break."
photosU.S. Gymnast Nastia Liukin's 2020 Tokyo Olympics Fashion
The 47-year-old, who now runs the Dominique Dawes Gymnastics & Ninja Academy in her native Maryland, was inspired to see the sport's undisputed leader Simone Biles do just that, a debilitating case of the "twisties" causing the seven-time medalist to pull herself out of several events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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Though it upended an admittedly lofty goal of nabbing six gold medals (one each for the team finals, all-around competition, beam, floor, vault and even the dreaded uneven bars) Biles "did what was best for her at that time," stressed Dawes, "and that probably not only saved her mental and emotional health, but also her physical health as well."
When Dawes competed at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, then in Atlanta and Sydney, "There were two-hour morning practices and then also five hours of practice in the evenings," she recounted of the grueling agenda. "It's a typical schedule for an Olympic training athlete. There's a lot of focus on repetitions and conditioning and flexibility work. There was not a lot of focus on mental health."
She suspects she may have fared a bit better emotionally "if it was a kinder, more compassionate culture."
Which is why if she could alter one aspect of her time in the gym, "I think it would be changing the environment that I was in to have a better support system, to have coaches that actually cared about my mental and emotional health, that saw me as an individual and not just as a commodity for their business."
The upside, though, is that along with becoming the first Black woman to win a gold medal in Olympic gymnastics, she gained all the skills necessary to win at life.
"It taught me never to give up," she said of her journey, that included a particularly painful stress fracture that forced her to withdraw from the 1995 World Championships, "that the road in life is not always going to be a easy one, but put one foot in front of the other, keep moving, and it's going to make you stronger."
With the right mix of hardwork and determination, she continued, "You'll learn from mistakes, you'll learn from hardships. That's something that I want to teach others."
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As for what else she'd like to pass along, Dawes joked that Biles "does not need advice from me" as she heads into her third Olympics. But the co-chair of the President's Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition does have a few tips for all of Team USA's athletes, Biles joined by fellow vets Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Suni Lee and newcomer Hezley Rivera.
For starters, don't forget to fuel up, Dawes' go-to involving a scoop of Skippy peanut butter, the official spread of USA Gymnastics. Not only does she enjoy the "wonderful, healthy protein snack," but she's often serving it up to her and husband Jeff Thompson's daughters Kateri, 10, and Quinn, 8, and 6-year-old twin sons Lincoln and Dakota: "They are very high energy kids, very athletic kids, and it's a great way to make sure that their energy stays up."
And to keep spirits equally high, she advises that competitors prioritize their mental well-being as much as their training sessions.
Courtesy of Skippy
"Take deep breaths," she recommended. "Either go to your meditation or affirmations or pray or find out what works well for you so that you take your mind off the Olympic Games and just put one foot in front of the other."
It can be so easy to flip into a place of feeling overwhelmed, "to get ahead of yourself and to think about marching out at the Olympic, the opening ceremonies and the games beginning," she continued, "but you really want to take one practice at a time because you never know what could happen."
Of course she, and the other athletes who have tumbled their way to the top for Team USA know this better than most. Check out what your favorite gymnasts have been up to since they put down the chalk.
—Reporting by Nikaline McCarley
