Gymnastics · 1996 · Atlanta, USA
The Magnificent Seven
Seven American gymnasts end four decades of Soviet and Russian dominance to win the first Olympic team gold in US women's gymnastics history.
USA 389.225, first team gold
Result
0.897 over Russia
Margin entering final rotation
7 gymnasts, 1 apparatus rotation each
Team
The USSR, and Russia and the Unified Team in its place, had won the Olympic women's team gymnastics title at every Games they entered from 1952 onwards. The United States, going into the 1996 Atlanta Olympics with Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Dominique Dawes, Kerri Strug, Amy Chow, Jaycie Phelps and captain Amanda Borden, had never won it at either the Olympics or the World Championships.
Across the compulsory and optional rounds on 21 and 23 July 1996, the American team built a lead over Russia that held into the final rotation, closing out the competition on 389.225. It is remembered above all for Kerri Strug's final vault on an injured ankle, understandably, but the result was the work of seven gymnasts across every apparatus over two days.
It was the first Olympic team gold American women's gymnastics had won, and it gave the group its lasting nickname, the Magnificent Seven. The balance of power in the sport moved that week, away from the countries that had held it since the 1950s, and it did not move back.
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