Gymnast Dawes, 16, Grabs the Early Lead
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Her teammates nicknamed her “Awesome.”
And on Tuesday, Dominique Dawes showed the world why.
The 16-year-old gymnast from Silver Spring, Md., registered an impressive set of scores in winning the first of six rounds of qualifying at the World Championships at Birmingham, England.
Loud cheers from the mostly British crowd greeted Dawes as she approached each piece of apparatus. And she justified the overwhelming support by scoring the highest marks in each of the four disciplines.
First came 9.712 for her floor exercise, then 9.618 for the vault and 9.75 on the asymmetric bars.
She topped that with her own best score of the day--9.812 on the beam--to complete a total of 38.892, which put her ahead of the 14 other competitors in her section.
Her nearest rival was Krisztina Molnar of Hungary, far back at 37.042, just ahead of Canada’s Stacey Galloway at 36.924.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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