Jamie Annette Dantzscher (born May 2, 1982) is an American former

artistic gymnast Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different types of apparatus. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which assigns the '' Code of Points'' used ...

. She was a member of the bronze medal-winning American team at the

2000 Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, officially branded as Sydney 2000, and also known as the Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October ...

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Early life

Dantzscher was born in

Canoga Park, California Canoga Park is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. Before the Mexican–American War, the district was part of a Ranchos of California, rancho, and after the American victory it was converted ...

and raised in

San Dimas, California San Dimas (Spanish language, Spanish for "Penitent thief, Saint Dismas") is a city in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 34,924. It historic ...

. She graduated from

San Dimas High School San Dimas High School is a secondary school located in San Dimas, California, in the United States. It is part of the Bonita Unified School District. Most of the students come from Lone Hill Middle School which shares the same city block as t ...

. She trained at Charter Oak Gliders in

Covina Covina (Help:IPA/English, /koviːnə/) is a city in the San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles The population was 51,268 according to the 2020 United States census, 2020 ...

under Beth Kline-Rybacki and Steve Rybacki.

Elite gymnastics career

Dantzscher was a member of the United States national gymnastics team for eight years, starting in 1994. In her international debut, the 1996 City of Popes competition in France, she won the all-around and

floor exercise In gymnastics, the floor is a specially prepared exercise surface, considered an apparatus. The floor exercise (English abbreviation FX) is the event performed on the floor, in both women's and men's artistic gymnastics (WAG and MAG). The same flo ...

titles. She competed in her first senior U.S. Nationals in 1997, finishing sixth in the all-around. Her placement would have qualified her to the U.S. squad for the

1997 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships The 33rd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held in Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. I ...

, but at 15, she was too young to meet the

International Federation of Gymnastics The International Gymnastics Federation (French language, French: ''Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique'', abbr. FIG) is the body governing competition in all disciplines of gymnastics. Its headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland. It wa ...

' newly raised minimum age requirement. She went on to compete at the

1999 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships The 34th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships were held at Tianjin Arena in Tianjin, China in 1999. Results **The Ukrainian Women's Gymnastics Team was awarded the bronze in 2011 after China was disqualified due to Dong Fongxiao being underag ...

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

, where she placed fifth with the American team. In 2000, Dantzscher won her first national all-around medal, a bronze. She placed fifth at the Olympic Trials, securing a berth on the U.S. team for the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, officially branded as Sydney 2000, and also known as the Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October ...

2000 Olympics

Dantzscher fell on the floor exercise during the team preliminaries in Sydney but competed well in the team finals, scoring 9.429 on

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosur ...

, 9.700 on the

uneven bars The uneven bars or asymmetric bars is an artistic gymnastics apparatus. It is made of a steel frame. The bars are made of fiberglass with wood coating, or less commonly wood. The English abbreviation for the event in gymnastics scoring is UB or ...

and 9.712 on floor. The U.S. team initially finished fourth, behind Romania, Russia, and China. Dantzscher was one of the most visible members of the U.S. Olympic team in the media because of her outspoken opposition to the policies of the national team coordinator,

Béla Károlyi Béla Károlyi (; September 13, 1942 – November 15, 2024) was a Romanian and American gymnastics coach of Hungarian origin. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralized training system for gymnastics. One of his earlies ...

, whom she called a "puppeteer". Her opinions about Károlyi, which were echoed by some of her teammates and their coaches, were published in many major news outlets during the Olympics. On April 28, 2010, Dantzscher and the other women on the 2000 Olympic team were awarded the bronze medal in the team competition when it was discovered that the Chinese team had falsified the age of one of its gymnasts,

Dong Fangxiao Dong Fangxiao () is a Chinese retired international gymnast who competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics. She won a bronze medal with the Chinese team at the Olympics, as well as the 1999 World Championships in Tianjin China, but both the medals ...

. Dong's results were nullified, and the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

stripped the Chinese team of its medal.

NCAA career

After the Olympics, Dantzscher joined the UCLA Bruins gymnastics team. During her

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

career, she achieved a UCLA record 28 perfect ten scores. In her first meet as a Bruin, she scored perfect tens on both of the events she competed, floor and bars, making her the first UCLA gymnast to score a perfect ten on her debut collegiate routine. In her four years of NCAA competition, Dantzscher achieved All-American honors 15 times, earned three

Pac-10 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the Western United States. It participates at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level for all sports, and its football teams compete in the Football Bowl ...

individual titles, and was a part of three

NCAA Championship The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

-winning Bruins teams. She received the 2004 AAI Award. Dantzscher was inducted into the

UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Big Ten Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) ...

in 2016.

Career Perfect 10.0

Post-gymnastics career

During the 2008–09 season, Dantzscher was an assistant coach for

Arizona State Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in Tempe, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, the university is one of the largest ...

. Before that, she coached at three gyms in California: Diamond Elite Gymnastics in Chino, Club Champion in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial d ...

, and East Bay Sports Academy in

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other words Arts and media * ''Concord'' (video game), a defunct 2024 first-person sh ...

. On March 29, 2017, Dantzscher was one of several former gymnasts who testified before Congress about the sexual abuse committed by

USA Gymnastics United States of America Gymnastics (USA Gymnastics or USAG) is the national governing body for gymnastics in the United States. It sets the domestic rules and policies that govern the sport, promotes and develops gymnastics on the grassroots ...

' national team doctor, Larry Nassar. She indicated she had been abused "all over the world", and that she thought she was the only one.

Personal life

Dantzscher's parents and her six siblings all have first names beginning with the letter J. Two of her younger sisters, twins Janelle and Jalynne, also competed on the UCLA gymnastics team. Jalynne competed with the Bruins for one season before retiring from gymnastics because of a recurring injury. Dantzscher's oldest sister, Jennifer Pippin, died in April 2017 of

asthma Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...

-related causes. Dantzscher is a

Latter-day Saint The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded b ...

. She is the sister-in-law of

Brandon Crawford Brandon Michael Crawford (born January 21, 1987) is an American former professional baseball shortstop. He spent 14 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), playing all but his last season for the San Francisco Giants. Crawford played college base ...

, the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

shortstop, who is married to Jalynne Dantzscher. In February 2017, three former gymnasts, Dantzscher, Jeanette Antolin and Jessica Howard, gave an interview with ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...

'' in which they accused

Larry Nassar Lawrence Gerard Nassar (born August 16, 1963) is an American former family medicine osteopathic physician and convicted sex offender. From 1996 to 2014, he was the team doctor of the United States women's national gymnastics team, where he use ...

of sexually abusing them. The gymnasts also alleged that the "emotionally abusive environment" at the national team training camps run by

Béla Béla may refer to: * Béla (crater), an elongated lunar crater * Béla (given name), a common Hungarian male given name See also * Bela (disambiguation) * Belá (disambiguation) * Bělá (disambiguation) Bělá may refer to: Places in the Cze ...

and

Márta Károlyi Márta Károlyi (; ; born August 29, 1942) is a Romanian-American gymnastics coach and the former national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics. She and her husband, Béla, are ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania, Romania, who trained athletes in ...

at the Karolyi Ranch gave Nassar an opportunity to take advantage of the gymnasts and made them afraid to speak up about the abuse.

References

External links

*
Jamie Dantzscher
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dantzscher, Jamie 1982 births Gymnasts from Los Angeles Living people Latter Day Saints from California American female artistic gymnasts Gymnasts at the 2000 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in gymnastics UCLA Bruins women's gymnasts Sportspeople from San Dimas, California U.S. women's national team gymnasts Gymnasts at the 1999 Pan American Games Medalists at the 1999 Pan American Games Pan American Games silver medalists for the United States in gymnastics People from Canoga Park, Los Angeles 20th-century American sportswomen