The 1996 Olympic Gymnastics Team: Where Are They Now?

In the summer of 1996, it was bigger than Friends and better than the fledgling new reality show The Real World. The best show on earth was the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and the main event, filled with sparkles and scrunchies and killer quad muscles, was the USA women’s gymnastics competition.

Long before “Yes we can,” America’s rallying cry briefly became “You can do it”—the words spoken, of course, by coach Bela Károly as 18-year-old Kerri Strug attempted to stick the landing on the final vault with a very injured ankle. Stick it she did: In front of 32,000 fans and a global television audience, Krug’s remarkable act of perseverance, athleticism, and courage clinched our country’s first-ever team gold medal in women’s gymnastics, edging out arch-rivals Russia and Romania. The team, known as the Magnificent Seven, went down in sports history and became true American heroines—Wheaties boxes, Tonight Show appearances, Sports Illustrated covers, White House visits, and all.

Of course, a lot has changed in women’s gymnastics since the Magnificent Seven—which also included Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Amanda Borden, Dominque Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps, and Amy Chow—made Olympics history 28 years ago. And many of those changes have led to major reckonings: In 2016, the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal rocked the sport; allegations against famed coaches Márta and Bela Károly ultimately led them to close their training ranch and flee the country. And, who could forget Simone Biles’ meteoric rise to worldwide gymnastic stardom or her groundbreaking decision to withdraw from the 2020 Tokyo Games to prioritize her mental health?

Regardless of what’s transpired since—or how the pressure placed on Strug and her teammates looks under today’s microscope— there’s still no question that the USA 1996 Olympic Gymnastics Team made an indelible mark on American sports history and inspired a whole generation of youths, athletes and otherwise. As Strug has said of the moment, “It was a catalyst for women in sports. We were the first generation to really see the success of Title IX. Since those Games, the progress has just catapulted and female athletes now have a shot at doing whatever it is they want to do.”

Here’s a look at where each member of the Magnificent Seven is now.

Kerri Strug

After the Olympics, the 4’8” powerhouse behind one of the most storied moments in sports history studied at UCLA, graduated from Stanford with a masters in sociology, and went on to become an elementary school teacher in San Jose, California, where, presumably every little girl wanted to be in Ms. Strug’s class. Now 46, Strug works with high-risk youths in the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and is a married mother of two. Strug has also become an outspoken supporter of modern-day gymnasts: “We need to look at each individual and respect their decision. No one knows what another person is experiencing,” she commented in 2023 in reference to Simone Biles’ decision not to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Games. She has written two books—Landing on My Feet: A Diary of Dreams and Heart of Gold.

Dominique Moceanu

Moceanu was just 14 years old when she became one of the biggest little stars in the Magnificent Seven. In 1998, she successfully sued for emancipation from her parents, alleging they’d mishandled her finances. (They’ve since reconciled.) In 2008, she spoke out against the Károlys on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel; in 2012, she wrote a tell-all memoir, Off Balance, revealing she’d learned she had a secret sister whom her parents gave up for adoption when she was born with no legs, and who idolized her during the ’96 Olympics. In 2017, she testified about in front of a Senate Judiciary Committee describing a “culture of fear, intimidation and humiliation” at the hands of the Károlys and Nassar. In 2021, she spoke out in defense of Biles on Twitter, writing of her own experience of competing while injured: “I was 14 y/o w/ a tibial stress fracture, left alone w/ no cervical spine exam after this fall. I competed in the Olympic floor final minutes later. @Simone_Biles decision demonstrates that we have a say in our own health—‘a say’ I NEVER felt I had as an Olympian.”

Today, Moceanu is 42 and married with two children. She lives in Ohio where she coaches young athletes at the Dominique Moceanu Gymnastics Center in Medina and continues to advocate for the safety and health of young gymnasts. Her son Vincent, 15, is also a gymnast and a 2028 Olympics hopeful.

Shannon Miller

The consummate champion of the 1996 Olympic Gymnastics Team—she also won individual gold on the balance beam, one of her 16 world championships and Olympic medals—Miller, now 47, is a married mother of two and a multifaceted entrepreneur: After graduating from the University of Houston and Boston College Law School, she founded her own wellness company, Shannon Miller Lifestyle; launched her own line of leotards; and started an eponymous foundation to fight childhood obesity. In 2011, Miller beat ovarian cancer, and she remains an advocate for the cause. She is also a popular motivational speaker who is regularly booked to give keynote addresses focused on attaining a gold-medal mindset. “I hope I continue to inspire others to do and be their very best each day,” she says.

Dominique Dawes

Twenty-eight years later, “Awesome Dawesome,” the first African-American to win an individual Olympic medal in gymnastics, is still pretty awesome. After winning a team bronze in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Dawes tried her hand at Hollywood, appearing in Prince’s “Betcha By Golly Wow” video and briefly on Broadway as Patty Simcox in Grease. In 2010, President Obama appointed her co-chair of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, and she has also served as President of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

Like many of her 1996 teammates, she has also been vocal about the treatment of gymnasts past and present: In 2021 she wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post about the pressure she faced to be perfect as a tween athlete.

Now 47, the three-time Olympian is married with four children and runs a training center—the Dominique Dawes Gymnastics & Ninja Academy—with three locations in Maryland where she aims to create a more supportive environment for young athletes than the one she had. Her desire to impact others positively extends to other sports as well; she was recently announced as a limited partner of the Atlanta Falcons: “What I accomplished in 1996, winning America’s first team gold medal in gymnastics and as the first African-American to win gold, in the city of Atlanta, has given me, to this day, the greatest platform to continually inspire others… I hope that my platform and influence as one of the few African-American women to be a limited partner in the National Football League has broad impact throughout the NFL community and beyond,” she said.

Amy Chow

Nicknamed “The Trickster” for her ability to master the most difficult of routines, Chow was the dynamo silver medalist on the uneven bars in ’96, and the first Asian-American woman to qualifiy for the Olympic gymnastics team and win an Olympic medal in gymnastics. While she had a lower profile among the group, many fans say she was also one of the most underated—she invented two skills on the uneven bars, called Chow I and Chow II. She is also one of only two Magnificent Seven members to make the 2000 Olympic gymnastics team. (The other was Dawes.) She went on to become an elite diver, pianist, and pole-vaulter, and though these days she keeps a pretty low profile, she’s now 46, married with two children and a Standford-educated doctor who lives in Northern California.

Amanda Borden

The vivacious 1996 team captain, once hair twins with Strug, is now 47 and shaping a whole new generation of Olympians as a coach and co-owner (with her husband) of the two-location Gold Medal Gym in Arizona. She’s also a commentator on gymnastics and cheerleading for news outlets like CBS Sports, Fox Sports, NBC and ESPN and has even won an Emmy Award for her coverage of NCAA gymnastics.

Jaycie Phelps

The face of determination who has a maneuver on the vault named after her, Phelps, now 44, is a married mother of two and the owner of the Jaycie Phelps Athletic Center in Greenfield, Indiana, where she coaches alongside her husband, David. “Now looking back and seeing just how much opportunity all of the [female Olympians] brought to women’s sports that year, it’s really humbling to know that I was a part of that,” she recently said of her time on the 1996 team.