The “Magnificent Seven” USA women’s gymnastics team won the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, then spent the next two decades authoring their own individual stories with which many Americans can identify personally. All the while, they stayed close to the sport that they mastered.
On Friday, NBCOlympics.com provided an update on the lives of the Magnificent Seven, so let’s take a look at where they are now.
Amanda Borden
The captain of USA Gymnastics’ all-conquering 1996 team, Borden became an entrepreneur and now owns Gold Medal Gymnastics Academy in Arizona. She also married Brad Cochran, with whom she runs the business, and at age 39 is the mother of three children.
Amy Chow
Chow extended her gymnastics career beyond Atlanta, competing at the 2000 Olympics and earning a bronze medal in the team competition. She dabbled in pole vaulting and diving after, while completing her medical school studies in the following years.
Chow has become a pediatrician, treating children in the Bay Area of Northern California, and at age 38 is married with two children.
Dominique Dawes
Dawes also earned a bronze medal in the team competition at the 2000 games. After retiring from gymnastics, Dawes appeared in both a Broadway show and a music video before working as a broadcaster, coach and motivational speaker. Dawes later joined the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition in 2010 and currently co-chairs the group.
Dawes, 39, is married with two daughters.
Shannon Miller
After failing to make the 2000 Olympic team, Miller help broadcast the Sydney Games before completing both her undergraduate education and law school. She now owns Shannon Miller Lifestyle, a fitness and health company, and a foundation that helps combat childhood obesity. Miller also has battled ovarian cancer and in 2015 published a memoir titled “It’s Not About Perfect: Competing for My Country and Fighting for My Life.”
Miller, 39, also is married with two children.
Dominique Moceanu
The youngest member of the Magnificent Seven, Moceanu overcame two bouts of gymnastics heartbreak and some family strife to finish her education and author the 2012 book “Off Balance.”
Now 34, Moceanu owns custom jewelry line “Creations by C&C” and is married with two children.
Jaycie Phelps
After failing to make the 2000 team, Phelps retired from gymnastics. In 2010, she opened the Jaycie Phelps Athletic Center in her hometown of Greenfield, Ind., and at age 36 operates the facility with her husband.
Kerri Strug
Strug’s vault in the team final was perhaps the Magnificent Seven’s most iconic moment and the end of her gymnastics career. Immediately following the Atlanta Olympics, Strug appeared on television shows, magazine covers and authored the memoir “Landing on My Feet: A Diary of Dreams.”
Strug went on to earn undergraduate and masters degrees, became a teacher and also worked for the U.S. government. She’s now 38 and married with two children.
Click to read NBCOlympics.com’s Magnificent Seven recap >>
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports Images
