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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 Karolyi as 18-year-old Kerri Strug attempted to stick the landing on the final vault with an injured ankle. And stick it she did: The team 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 American heroines (Wheaties boxes and all). Twenty years later, as Simone “Supernova” Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, and company go for gold in Rio, where are the Magnificent Seven?
Kerri Strug
After the Olympics, the girl behind one of the most storied moments in sports history studied at UCLA, graduated from Stanford, 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 38, Strug works with the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and is a married mother of two. Look out, 2034 Olympics: Strug’s toddler daughter loves to do rolls.[#image: /photos/589118a38c64075803acdd57]|||Kerri Strug during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games|||
Dominique Moceanu
Moceanu was just 14 years old when she became one of the biggest little stars in the Magnificent Seven. Today she’s 34, has done part-time coaching in Ohio, run clinics across the country, and authored a children’s book series. But her post-Olympic career has been anything but blah: In 1998, she successfully sued for emancipation from her parents, alleging they’d mishandled her finances. (They’ve since reconciled.) In 2012, she wrote a tell-all memoir, Off Balance, saying Karolyi and fellow coach Martha Karolyi were abusive, and 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. Moceanu is married with two children.[#image: /photos/589118a469f0c3501f1dc851]|||Dominique Moceanu during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games|||
Shannon Miller
The consummate champion of the 1996 team—she also won individual gold on the balance beam, one of her 16 world championships and Olympic medals—Miller, now 39, 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 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.[#image: /photos/589118a423f9887c0e0dee46]|||Shannon Miller during the 1994 Goodwill Games|||
Dominique Dawes
Twenty 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. Dawes, now 39, is married with a daughter, and the hero of beloved 2016 Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas.[#image: /photos/589118a523f9887c0e0dee48]|||Dominique Dawes during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games|||
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 win an Olympic medal in gymnastics. While she had a lower profile among the group, Chow was 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. She’s now 38, married, and a Standford-educated pediatrician.[#image: /photos/589118a77edfa70512d62206]|||Amy Chow at the Sydney Olympic qualifications|||
Amanda Borden
The vivacious 1996 team captain, once hair twins with Strug, is now shaping a new generation of Olympians as a coach and co-owner (with her husband) of the Gold Medal Gym in Tempe, Arizona. She’s also a commentator on gymnastics and cheerleading for news outlets like CBS Sports and ESPN.[#image: /photos/589118a7e8e3104f57c70f2a]|||Amanda Borden during the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games|||
Jaycie Phelps
The face of determination—and a fan of giant white scrunchies—Phelps, now 36, is the owner of the Jaycie Phelps Athletic Center in Greenfield, Indiana.[#image: /photos/589118a84fe152611301fcb4]||||||