If you live in the greater Atlanta area, you likely remember the summer of 1996. In many ways, it was a season marked by the oppressive humidity and suffocating heat that are just a part of life in the south. It was also marked by something else that felt entirely different: an international Olympic competition that held the world rapt with its drama and excitement.
July 19 through August 4, 1996, were days filled with the promise of what 16 days in late July and early August in Atlanta could and would become. The world came to Atlanta to watch a competition and a history-making event that would be discussed and remembered for decades to come. It was 16 days where each event had a story of its own and sports fans everywhere were on an emotional roller coaster.
The story of 1996 in women’s gymnastics is one of those stories.
Few, if any, imagined what was about to happen at the end of July in Atlanta. The 1996 Summer Olympic competition had an underdog that was a group of seven young women from the United States. The young women in question were upstarts and relative newcomers to the world of Olympic gymnastics, but they were also on the leading edge of something new. At the head of the pack was Dominique Dawes, an eight-time Olympic medalist who was about to make history.
As the chalk dust settled in the Georgia Dome at the end of competition, Dawes and her team had not just made history, but history of a sort that made them the stuff of legends. The Magnificent Seven, as they came to be known, had achieved the unthinkable and brought home the first-ever team gold medal for the United States in women’s gymnastics.
It would become a defining moment in Dawes’ career and the high-water mark in a career that had already seen a gold-medal performance on an Olympic stage.
Now, nearly 30 years after that gold-medal finish, Dawes, an Olympic gold medalist, has returned to Atlanta. The difference this time is that she is not there as an athlete but rather as a coach, leader and an entrepreneur that will help to redefine the competitive sports space in Alpharetta and North Atlanta.
Dominique Dawes Academy Expands to North Atlanta
The latest in a string of Dominique Dawes Gymnastics Academies will open in North Atlanta in 2025. For Dominique Dawes Academy, this marks an important expansion for the national franchise. For Dawes, however, the new location in North Atlanta has an emotional and even a nostalgic connection to her storied Olympic career.
As amazing as the story of 1996 in Atlanta is on its own, there is one thing that makes the connection between the gold-medal women’s gymnastics story of 1996 and the Dominique Dawes Academy feel even more like fate or kismet.
That one link is Atlanta, Georgia.
Atlanta is, of course, where Dawes had her Olympic gold-medal moment in her storied career. It is also where, before that competition even began, the team found a place to train, choreograph, rehearse and most importantly bond in peace, away from the media that was already circling.
The Dominique Dawes Academy team found that place in Tucker, Georgia, in the Tucker Recreation Center. It is a facility in DeKalb County that was humble but state-of-the-art for the time and the place where the Magnificent Seven secretly worked to achieve their dreams. It is the place where an all-American story was written. It is where Dawes went to find one of the first locations for the Dominique Dawes Academy three decades after the gold medal.
What Makes Alpharetta the Perfect Community for Youth Gymnastics
As Dawes and her team dove deep into the Atlanta market to determine just where to open its first new North American location outside of Maryland and Virginia, one community kept coming to the top of the list: Alpharetta.
Indeed, as the research team at Dominique Dawes Academy started to look at communities throughout metro Atlanta, Alpharetta with neighboring Roswell, Milton and Johns Creek which are often included in the North Atlanta market, kept moving to the front of the line to even be in contention. As the research team dug deeply into the market, it found a community that shared its values, was well-represented in the desired demographic makeup and had an existing ecosystem of youth activities that met or exceeded the level in the previous markets.
It is no secret to anyone who has spent any time exploring the great communities within metro Atlanta to find them as the winners in such a search. The focus of the research team was a culture and an area where parents are already making it a priority to not just raise strong and healthy children but also active and happy children. The ideal community is one where families make a point not just of education but also activity, sports and an enriching extracurricular life. When the research also showed a demographic set that would see growth over the next five years, a choice was made.
Alpharetta, North Atlanta and metro Atlanta are where the newest Dominique Dawes Academy calls home.
Dominique Dawes Academy Builds on Maryland Success
The academy is no stranger to opening new locations over the course of its history. Maryland and Virginia, in particular, have been good homes for the Dominique Dawes Academy.
One thing that has always set Dominique Dawes Academy apart from other gymnastics franchises, traditional gymnastics gyms and other sports or activities for kids is a focus on quality, value, community and a coaching philosophy that has been shaped and honed over the better part of three decades.
If there is a specific mission to Dominique Dawes Academy, it is a desire to make gymnastics and ninja programming available to every child in a safe and healthy environment and do it in a way that elevates the community and the family experience.
In looking at Alpharetta, North Atlanta and metro Atlanta, what the research team found was a clear picture of a community where those values resonate. There was a good picture of an existing ecosystem of youth activities and a culture that suggested a family-friendly environment with parents who are already involved.
It also helped that data showed that 85% of all activities in North Atlanta are organized by parents, teachers or community groups, according to a city website.
“Parents and their children are leading the way in developing a wide variety of groups to serve as support and active participation in family events,” the city website notes. “For families, this offers the chance to take an active role in creating something special.”
What did not take long to learn was that there is no local gym or sports program that could compete with the community-first approach that Dominique Dawes Academy would bring with its family-friendly, pro-growth community values.
Parents and kids alike looking for a community-oriented and affordable way to enter the competitive gymnastics space will find an ideal home in Alpharetta, North Atlanta and metro Atlanta with the Dominique Dawes Academy.
