I like to see her smile, she really enjoys what she does, watch her smile when she finishes her second pass, her first pass look so so easy for her, and the way she finishes her last pass, wow, she knew she did a great routin.
She was so underrated in event finals in Atlanta! This was the best floor routine of her career! She skies the double layout. She aggressively attacks the second combination pass and nails it! Then caps it off with the most beautiful high full in pike and rocks the landing on it I am glad they sent her home with the a medal, but that was definitely a golden exercise!
Malixie if she would have hit in the aa she would have been the aa silver medalist - and probably would have the silver over Amânar here. Judges tend to show bias to those who’ve already medaled.
wow...memories. i use to IDOLIZE her. met her, got an autgraphed pic and everything. in any case she was (and still is) the queen of the floor exercise. AND she was so beautiful. truly magnificent.
This is the Dominique Dawes I loved. I wish she would have gone out on the high note of 1996 with a team gold and individual bronze. She had nothing else to prove by trying to stick around for what ended up being sub-par perfomances in Sydney. I will always love and cherish the Dominique of Atlanta, especially on this floor exercise performance.
actually Dawes was already a lock for the all around finals, her and shannon miller, but the 3rd spot was between kerri strug and dominique monceanu and when kerri did her famous vault and twisted her ankle, she had to withdrawl from the all around leaving monceanu to pick up the 3rd spot.. As far as the event finals, only the top 2 scores per country (2 gymnasts) are allowed for finals and since kerri would have qualified but had to withdrawl, the next highest score is in.. that was dawes
@Chutson353 Agree- her double layout is great! I remember being bummed when I heard she was getting rid of the back-to-back passes in order to favor the double layout. Then I saw it haha....wise move!
What you said is applicable to the '96 games as far as I can tell. I think that they made the age requirment to 16 in the Olympic year as of the '04 Olympic games, but they might have changed that for the '00 games, I forget which.
@Mikizzle15 Actually with going out of bounds, it is typically a 1/10 deduction, and under the old code, the judges could deduct anywhere from 1/10 to 5/10ths.
Moceanu only made the final because the media had decided that she was the American 'it' girl of the year. Her routine didnt even start out of a 10 in qual.
@bubblinbrownsugar616 - There will be Latin and Asian presidents sooner than anyone expects..because the US is a country made up of such diverse citizenship..were one of few countries w such diversity...a beautiful thing..along w Dawes' performance ;-)
@Mikizzle15 OH yeah i agree she was NEVER overrated. Dominique is one of my favorite gymnasts of all time. I always felt so bad because she always had such bad luck in the all around at major competitions. She would have deserved to win because of her incredible difficulty and she always seemed like such a genuinely nice person!!
@Mikizzle15 Well, actually, your comment implies that going out of bounds is a bigger deduction than sitting down, while really sitting down is a bigger deduction than merely going out of bounds. Obviously falling out of bounds is worse than falling in-bounds, but your comment didn't make that clear.
Don't forget Betty Okino and Elvire Teza (though she was on the French team) No they didn't get the loudest cheers like Awesome Dawesome, but they put moves on the books I've seen no one do but them!
I actually think think your choices are correct, but Moceanu had the best presentation and music of the final, and remember her routine was from a 10 with the upgraded second pass, I think she deserved 4th
agree, I heard she barely made it back cuz she ran to the bathroom before he name was called, guess they didnt have plumbing in romania so she took advantage of that in Atlanta. I think Amanars tumbling was amazing, and she did out tumble Dawes with a triple twist that was extra, so I think the judges were correct in giving her the silver, but I dont believe she deserved it
It was a relatively new pass for her. She took out the back-to-back tumbling because forward tumbling scored higher. The two and 1/2 twists to punch front is a hard(er) pass...and one which because of injuries in the 1995 season was all the harder for her to master. But she did it here.
Yea, so do I...but Lilia had just won the AA, and in gymnastics, scoring isn't fair quite often...which only damages it's credibility for the critics who say it's not a REAL sport.
(@eM)- I liked the simple hurdle. It was cool, a little different- & it showed that she didn't have to run at all to generate the power to complete the pass. Plus it helped her stay in bounds (which she had a bit of a problem doing anyway), lol. You may see similarities between Dawes & Moceanu's dance b/c they had the same choreographer for their floor sets- Geza Poszar. (I don't see the similarities you're speaking of, though.) I think the ending pose worked better w/ the flexed foot.
@akademikn3rd82 She was a role model for black guys in gymnastics like myself when I was younger. Chainey Umphrey was good but was a real force and floor was also my specialty. She seemed inconsistent but it seems she always came thru when the real pressure was on.
Dawes should have qualified on her own for this EF, she got shafted in the compulsories where they didnt even give her a 9.7 for that routine. At the time, the US was pulling away from the rest of the countries, and the judges tried to keep a lid on the US to keep Rumania in the hunt.
Those of you who are saying Moceanu deserved bronze over Dawes are blinded by your infatuation with the "cutesy-wutesy" darling 14 year old crap that the media(NBC particularly) tried to force down our throats at the time. Her choreohraphy matches her music but as someone who despises country music, I'd say her routine was far from being the best.
okay thank you for replying. Now I hav another question. Say the olympics in 2012 are in august, and someones born in september or after that, and they are fifteen but born on an olympic year what happens?
I agree! After beam she pretty much had it locked up! I thought for sure she would medal after beam. She had a much better chance than Shannon of winning the gold since Shannon's double layout had major problems and her vaulting wasn't as difficult as Dominique's. That just made it three meets where she should have won ('93 and 94 Worlds and '96 Olympics).
@metsdudenj - I agree that she should've been in ef rightly, but I think the problem was that comps shouldnt have been relative to ef quals. If u wana include it in AA, then ok, but ef is where u wana see event specialists doing their thing..not a gymn who happened to have a balletic line but no specialist skills in a routine..ef should have ALWAYS been void of comp scores imho...
what happened to her? i dont get how in the second pass all she does is hurdle into that pass. she doesnt even run. was she coached by bella 2? i c simular dance moves between her adn little dominique. i dont like it when she doesnt keep her toes pointed on the ending pose.
@emmyjo720 enthusiasm is NOT the same as enthusiasm. Steve Nunno had SO MUCH enthusiasm. His loudness might not have been so noticeable if Shannon Miller wasn't so quiet. Bela is not obnoxious either, just letting you know.
This was truly a great performance! Gold medal worthy all day! But Lilia was quite breathtaking herself, and I still think Amanar is the best tumbler we've ever seen in artistic gym. I was just glad to see Dom get an indiv medal..something that she prob would have received in 92, in this same event, if it wasnt for compulsories.
dmann3g compulsories killed a lot of her career. She’d be more successful now. Totally disagree on Amânar. She was an excellent vaulter but nowhere near the top of her generation with tumbling. Dawes was superior, Podkopayeva as well.
i agree with you Monceanue was no where near the class of these routines but was so cute.. her less than stellar rotine (with perfect music) was supposed to uplift her to gold.... do get me wrong she did her part in the gold for the team but didnt outshine the top gymnasts...
@mzmissa Sheesh you say that like it was her music that made her mediocre comparatively. I don't disagree with you, I'm just saying you're not putting up a good argument.
Dawes would have scored higher is she had better angle on her second pass. She was off to the side a bit in that landing, but she still was good. I agree on Amanar, her tumbling got her the silver, but she could not dance...
ON bars, she was denied, what should have been at least a tie for the Silver. Her exercise was difficult with flow and flawless! Judges kinda didn't want to reward the gymnast for the USA that coulda shoulda won the all around!
No...ironically, thats how Dawes made the final..even though the routine competed in ef, is the routine in which, she had the highest US score..thank GOD they got rid of compulsories..could you imagine basketball, or any other SPORT with a round of requirements for all individuals??? Exactly..no you cant!
Lilia may have been a 'good' dancer (by gymn standards) but just because u liked her better, don't try and convince urself that Lilia had harder tumbling. Not by a longshot.
I love her to death, but I think she just couldn't handle the pressure ever...she always seemed to cave under pressure during the worlds and even olympics, but when she hit, she hit big time!! I love her 94 Floor Routine!! :)
@Mikizzle15 She's a cute lil white girl..true story..if Dom Dawes was white..she'd have so many more fans and would be ahead of Moceanu on youtube searches...but it is what it is..
Friday Nite if she would have hit she would have been silver without a doubt. Her vaults would have kept her behind Lilia indeed but she was almost a full tenth ahead of Gogean and the Romanians.
Gogean and Raducan are the only Romanians in the last 20 years who I thought were really good dancers. Maybe Olaru was good too, not excellent like the other two, but decent. The rest of the top Romanians since after Silivas retired couldnt dance their way out of a paper bag.
this was the total package. amanar, other than strong tumbling, was horrendous. podkopayeva didn't have stronger tumbler but won on overall presentation.
Weaker how? Amanar had the highest difficulty in this EF with 4 difficult passes (Double layout, whip to 2.5 twist punch front, triple twist, pike full in), while Dawes only had 3 passes. Plus Amanar's tumblings were all sky high with good execution. In no way should this be ranked over Amanar.
matthewxcountry Yup. Dawes should be glad that Gina Gogean made a mistake by stepping out of bounds (which was an extremely rare sight as she was well known of her consistency) or Dawes would come home empty handed. And Amanar's performance rivaled Lilipod. And I am ok with either of them getting gold.
Kat K For real. People look at the difficulty side and want to say Amanar deserved silver here ? What an utter joke. They so complain of the current gymnasts not being artistic but say they're ok with Amanar winning silver or even gold .Ridiculous. No way it should pass Lilia Podkopayeva either.
Gogean was an AWFUL dancer. She was probably the worst romanian ever at dancing. Raducan was ok, it's just a real shame that they never put in much effort to artistry, because there aren't many who could beat romanian tumbling.
I like to see her smile, she really enjoys what she does, watch her smile when she finishes her second pass, her first pass look so so easy for her, and the way she finishes her last pass, wow, she knew she did a great routin.
Even though I never got into gymnastics, this black woman made me believe that I could something important in life.
She was so underrated in event finals in Atlanta! This was the best floor routine of her career! She skies the double layout. She aggressively attacks the second combination pass and nails it! Then caps it off with the most beautiful high full in pike and rocks the landing on it I am glad they sent her home with the a medal, but that was definitely a golden exercise!
She makes me just smile when I watch her :)
Excellent! You just brought back a flood of memories for me. :) Thanks!
Beautiful!!!
just fabulous
I LOVE the way she finnishes her passes! (: (: (:!
I was so happy when she got an individual medal even if it was bronze. She worked so hard and deserved an olympic medal that was all hers.
Malixie if she would have hit in the aa she would have been the aa silver medalist - and probably would have the silver over Amânar here. Judges tend to show bias to those who’ve already medaled.
One of America's best ever... Such power! too bad she never really won a major international gold individual medal.
As long as your 16th birthday is ANYWHERE in the year that the Olympic games are going to take place, you are age eligible for a spot on the team.
Guh, she's just amazing. There's just no doubt about it.
wow...memories. i use to IDOLIZE her. met her, got an autgraphed pic and everything. in any case she was (and still is) the queen of the floor exercise. AND she was so beautiful. truly magnificent.
dawes rocks my world!! ive wath that second many times its still awsome, amanar couldn't do it the same way, dawes is an all time great!!
Perfect
beautiful! great posture.
This is the Dominique Dawes I loved. I wish she would have gone out on the high note of 1996 with a team gold and individual bronze. She had nothing else to prove by trying to stick around for what ended up being sub-par perfomances in Sydney. I will always love and cherish the Dominique of Atlanta, especially on this floor exercise performance.
actually Dawes was already a lock for the all around finals, her and shannon miller, but the 3rd spot was between kerri strug and dominique monceanu and when kerri did her famous vault and twisted her ankle, she had to withdrawl from the all around leaving monceanu to pick up the 3rd spot.. As far as the event finals, only the top 2 scores per country (2 gymnasts) are allowed for finals and since kerri would have qualified but had to withdrawl, the next highest score is in.. that was dawes
A flawless triple turn! High up on toe and perfectly controlled and kicked out of!
She is so good Praise Her
@Chutson353 Agree- her double layout is great! I remember being bummed when I heard she was getting rid of the back-to-back passes in order to favor the double layout. Then I saw it haha....wise move!
Redemption.
What you said is applicable to the '96 games as far as I can tell. I think that they made the age requirment to 16 in the Olympic year as of the '04 Olympic games, but they might have changed that for the '00 games, I forget which.
I will take Dominique over any current gymnast today!!!
Dominique's score was a 9.837, Simona's was a 9.85, and Lilia's was a 9.887.
Excellent routine
@Mikizzle15 Actually with going out of bounds, it is typically a 1/10 deduction, and under the old code, the judges could deduct anywhere from 1/10 to 5/10ths.
Moceanu only made the final because the media had decided that she was the American 'it' girl of the year. Her routine didnt even start out of a 10 in qual.
@bubblinbrownsugar616 - There will be Latin and Asian presidents sooner than anyone expects..because the US is a country made up of such diverse citizenship..were one of few countries w such diversity...a beautiful thing..along w Dawes' performance ;-)
HATERRRRZZZZ!
SHE KILLED IT!
@Mikizzle15 OH yeah i agree she was NEVER overrated. Dominique is one of my favorite gymnasts of all time. I always felt so bad because she always had such bad luck in the all around at major competitions. She would have deserved to win because of her incredible difficulty and she always seemed like such a genuinely nice person!!
@Mikizzle15 Well, actually, your comment implies that going out of bounds is a bigger deduction than sitting down, while really sitting down is a bigger deduction than merely going out of bounds. Obviously falling out of bounds is worse than falling in-bounds, but your comment didn't make that clear.
@monilove5 Now if THAT ain't the truth!!! I remember 9 years old watching the Atlanta Olympics just in awe. Still in awe :)
Don't forget Betty Okino and Elvire Teza (though she was on the French team) No they didn't get the loudest cheers like Awesome Dawesome, but they put moves on the books I've seen no one do but them!
I actually think think your choices are correct, but Moceanu had the best presentation and music of the final, and remember her routine was from a 10 with the upgraded second pass, I think she deserved 4th
agree, I heard she barely made it back cuz she ran to the bathroom before he name was called, guess they didnt have plumbing in romania so she took advantage of that in Atlanta. I think Amanars tumbling was amazing, and she did out tumble Dawes with a triple twist that was extra, so I think the judges were correct in giving her the silver, but I dont believe she deserved it
It was a relatively new pass for her. She took out the back-to-back tumbling because forward tumbling scored higher. The two and 1/2 twists to punch front is a hard(er) pass...and one which because of injuries in the 1995 season was all the harder for her to master. But she did it here.
I am not sure if that made a difference, but the bobble on the triple turn probably cost her .1 and maybe the directional thing a .05
yeah, i noticed that too
Yea, so do I...but Lilia had just won the AA, and in gymnastics, scoring isn't fair quite often...which only damages it's credibility for the critics who say it's not a REAL sport.
im talking about the AA finals. i know she got a bronze on the floor event.
okay, can someone tell me there are 3 competitions in the olympics for gymnastics, are they on three seperate days?
(@eM)- I liked the simple hurdle. It was cool, a little different- & it showed that she didn't have to run at all to generate the power to complete the pass. Plus it helped her stay in bounds (which she had a bit of a problem doing anyway), lol.
You may see similarities between Dawes & Moceanu's dance b/c they had the same choreographer for their floor sets- Geza Poszar. (I don't see the similarities you're speaking of, though.)
I think the ending pose worked better w/ the flexed foot.
@akademikn3rd82 She was a role model for black guys in gymnastics like myself when I was younger. Chainey Umphrey was good but was a real force and floor was also my specialty. She seemed inconsistent but it seems she always came thru when the real pressure was on.
Dawes should have qualified on her own for this EF, she got shafted in the compulsories where they didnt even give her a 9.7 for that routine. At the time, the US was pulling away from the rest of the countries, and the judges tried to keep a lid on the US to keep Rumania in the hunt.
OOOOO MY God she says!
Those of you who are saying Moceanu deserved bronze over Dawes are blinded by your infatuation with the "cutesy-wutesy" darling 14 year old crap that the media(NBC particularly) tried to force down our throats at the time. Her choreohraphy matches her music but as someone who despises country music, I'd say her routine was far from being the best.
okay thank you for replying. Now I hav another question. Say the olympics in 2012 are in august, and someones born in september or after that, and they are fifteen but born on an olympic year what happens?
I agree! After beam she pretty much had it locked up! I thought for sure she would medal after beam. She had a much better chance than Shannon of winning the gold since Shannon's double layout had major problems and her vaulting wasn't as difficult as Dominique's. That just made it three meets where she should have won ('93 and 94 Worlds and '96 Olympics).
@metsdudenj - I agree that she should've been in ef rightly, but I think the problem was that comps shouldnt have been relative to ef quals. If u wana include it in AA, then ok, but ef is where u wana see event specialists doing their thing..not a gymn who happened to have a balletic line but no specialist skills in a routine..ef should have ALWAYS been void of comp scores imho...
what happened to her? i dont get how in the second pass all she does is hurdle into that pass. she doesnt even run. was she coached by bella 2? i c simular dance moves between her adn little dominique. i dont like it when she doesnt keep her toes pointed on the ending pose.
@emmyjo720 enthusiasm is NOT the same as enthusiasm. Steve Nunno had SO MUCH enthusiasm. His loudness might not have been so noticeable if Shannon Miller wasn't so quiet. Bela is not obnoxious either, just letting you know.
This was truly a great performance! Gold medal worthy all day! But Lilia was quite breathtaking herself, and I still think Amanar is the best tumbler we've ever seen in artistic gym. I was just glad to see Dom get an indiv medal..something that she prob would have received in 92, in this same event, if it wasnt for compulsories.
dmann3g compulsories killed a lot of her career. She’d be more successful now.
Totally disagree on Amânar. She was an excellent vaulter but nowhere near the top of her generation with tumbling. Dawes was superior, Podkopayeva as well.
she made the floor final 'cause Kerri was pulled out due to her injury; so the US had to replace her w/ a gymnast w/ the next higest score!
what's the name of her music?
9.837 - 3rd place.
i agree with you Monceanue was no where near the class of these routines but was so cute.. her less than stellar rotine (with perfect music) was supposed to uplift her to gold.... do get me wrong she did her part in the gold for the team but didnt outshine the top gymnasts...
@mzmissa Did someone actually SAY that Moceanu deserved bronze over Dawes? WOW..Moceanu mounted with Dawes' dismount...
well sort of...u have team comp day, all around day, and 2 days of event finals
@mzmissa Sheesh you say that like it was her music that made her mediocre comparatively. I don't disagree with you, I'm just saying you're not putting up a good argument.
k thanks!
wow harsh
o. if the us team had shanon, domie and biog domie andddddd chow eperformed her best. they may have medaled.
Dawes would have scored higher is she had better angle on her second pass. She was off to the side a bit in that landing, but she still was good. I agree on Amanar, her tumbling got her the silver, but she could not dance...
ON bars, she was denied, what should have been at least a tie for the Silver. Her exercise was difficult with flow and flawless! Judges kinda didn't want to reward the gymnast for the USA that coulda shoulda won the all around!
No...ironically, thats how Dawes made the final..even though the routine competed in ef, is the routine in which, she had the highest US score..thank GOD they got rid of compulsories..could you imagine basketball, or any other SPORT with a round of requirements for all individuals??? Exactly..no you cant!
Lilia may have been a 'good' dancer (by gymn standards) but just because u liked her better, don't try and convince urself that Lilia had harder tumbling. Not by a longshot.
'No Kelli..I'm gonna DISmount w this media creations' MOUNT..'
very good point, but Dawes would have fucked up a fourth pass, better to let her focus on three solid ones.
you have to be 16 or turning 16 that year
I love her to death, but I think she just couldn't handle the pressure ever...she always seemed to cave under pressure during the worlds and even olympics, but when she hit, she hit big time!! I love her 94 Floor Routine!! :)
how cccccccccccooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllll
If only she did this in the AA, I know she would have attacked vault...
@dmann3g what a load of crap. people dont care about colour in gymnastics any more than they care about nationality..... we love it!
@grafgirl27 she wa soverrated because she came from karoli's ranch, i swear they hype up every gymnast that comes from there
Friday Nite I totally agree with you. That's why I am so glad they are both retired.
Gogean was horrible at expressing herself but her dance technique was sound.
Her punch front in her second pass was off line. Maybe that's what cost her the silver.
the bobble on the triple turn
@Mikizzle15 She's a cute lil white girl..true story..if Dom Dawes was white..she'd have so many more fans and would be ahead of Moceanu on youtube searches...but it is what it is..
If she would have hit this in all around she would have been atleast silver ... there is no way she would have beat Lilia though
Friday Nite if she would have hit she would have been silver without a doubt. Her vaults would have kept her behind Lilia indeed but she was almost a full tenth ahead of Gogean and the Romanians.
Gogean and Raducan are the only Romanians in the last 20 years who I thought were really good dancers. Maybe Olaru was good too, not excellent like the other two, but decent. The rest of the top Romanians since after Silivas retired couldnt dance their way out of a paper bag.
this was the total package. amanar, other than strong tumbling, was horrendous. podkopayeva didn't have stronger tumbler but won on overall presentation.
if she had done this she would of at least got a metal
that did sound racist even when it was not your intention and the other guy was offensive to you by sayng die just for your comment.
no its cool lol
This routine should have won silver over Amanar
Kat K agreed. Amânar was so stiff and her tumbling was weaker.
Weaker how?
Amanar had the highest difficulty in this EF with 4 difficult passes (Double layout, whip to 2.5 twist punch front, triple twist, pike full in), while Dawes only had 3 passes.
Plus Amanar's tumblings were all sky high with good execution. In no way should this be ranked over Amanar.
and Dawes fell out of her triple turn
matthewxcountry Yup. Dawes should be glad that Gina Gogean made a mistake by stepping out of bounds (which was an extremely rare sight as she was well known of her consistency) or Dawes would come home empty handed.
And Amanar's performance rivaled Lilipod. And I am ok with either of them getting gold.
Kat K For real. People look at the difficulty side and want to say Amanar deserved silver here ? What an utter joke. They so complain of the current gymnasts not being artistic but say they're ok with Amanar winning silver or even gold .Ridiculous. No way it should pass Lilia Podkopayeva either.
Gogean was an AWFUL dancer. She was probably the worst romanian ever at dancing. Raducan was ok, it's just a real shame that they never put in much effort to artistry, because there aren't many who could beat romanian tumbling.
Dominique's score was a 9.837, Simona's was a 9.85, and Lilia's was a 9.887.