The unconventional legacy of Dominique Dawes

— -- In July and August, espnW's weekly essay series will focus on body image. 

Dominique Dawes was one of only seven to make it to the Olympic team in 1996, out of millions of girls who practice gymnastics.

Aside from the near impossibility of this achievement, there were even more predetermined challenges set for Dawes from the moment she entered the gym -- simply because the sport wasn't cultivated for black girls like her. Her body was considered deviant or exotic even before she began her routine.

In a 1995 Los Angeles Times  article, writer Maryann Hudson documented that Dawes' critics believed that "her look wasn't quite right," her legs were "bowed" or knees "knobby" and her hair "askew." Dawes faced more than skewed perceptions of body image at the time -- she confronted centuries of racial prejudice that had grown in the sport of gymnastics. 

The sport began in ancient Greece, but Germany and Czechoslovakia produced the current form of gymnastics in the early 19th century. In the second half of the 1900s, gymnasts from the Soviet Union dominated.

Some of the most accomplished gymnasts were Larisa Latynina and Olga Korbut, who were described by publications as "beautiful" and "pixie," images that invoked their elegance, diminutiveness and attractiveness. Then during the Cold War, while the Soviet Union and the U.S. competed militarily, economically and politically, the tension manifested in gymnastics. 

As Ann Kordas wrote in the book "Girlhood: A Global History," the U.S. used images of young, productive, female gymnasts to demonstrate their country's superiority, showing the American gymnast was able to discipline her body to produce superhuman-like strength.