With a cloud of dust rising around her as she rubs chalk on her hands, Brenna Dowell, 20, stands strong and focused in a place she knows well.
She started gymnastics at GAGE (Great American Gymnastics Express) in Blue Springs around the time she was in preschool.
"Gymnastics has always been fun,” Dowell said, still in love with the sport she practices for about six hours per day and six days per week.
Her favorite event? The bars.
“I just love the feeling of flying, and I think bars is the closest you can get.”
Now she’s wondering how close she’ll get to an Olympic podium.
Dowell just earned a silver medal at the 2016 Pacific Rim championships for her floor routine a few weeks ago.
Back in Kansas City, she works to tweak even the smallest movements with head coach Al Fong. They're hoping she’ll be a part of the team that represents the United States at the Olympics in Rio this summer.
“When you nail that routine…it's just pure happiness,” Dowell said smiling.
“She’s always had the talent. Strong, brave,” said Fong. “When she hits road blocks, it never bothers her.”
And Dowell has hit a few. In 2014, she took college classes online so she could stay and get ready for the World Championships, only to battle an injury over the summer.
“So I was an alternate,” she said. “That was definitely difficult because that was definitely one of my best shots to make the team.”
“We had a four year plan and an eight year plan. We came close in 2012,” said Fong. “We actually thought she was gone forever.”
Dowell decided to accept a full-ride scholarship to the University of Oklahoma. She loved it and had a successful season but felt a tug on her heart.
“I just felt like I had some unfinished business here.”
So she left school to come home, continue training and compete on the international stage. Fong admits it was a gutsy move.
“There’s people who said don’t do it, you’re crazy,” he said. “Because there was no guarantees whatsoever. You’re either all in or you’re not at all, and she was the one who said I’m doing it no matter what.”
Because to go to Rio as a gymnast, it takes more than just one great performance. Dowell came back to prove she was ready.
“I really wanted to make a World Championship team, become a World Champion, and get ‘The Dowell’ named after me,” she said.
That’s right. She has her very own move!
“The Dowell is... I do a front handspring into a double pike forwards,” she said.
When you perform the move at a competition like the World Championships, you get to put your name on it. That was Dowell’s plan in October 2015. When the music for her floor routine didn’t play as planned, she performed her routine anyway as the crowd clapped and cheered her on.
“So I ran onto the floor and went because I didn’t want to get a zero, so I just did my routine!” said Dowell.
That included the move that will now be known in women’s gymnastics as “The Dowell."
“Yeah it's so cool,” she said.
With that checked off the list, she’s had her mind focused on Rio.
“We plan on making the Olympic team and now Kansas City is ready to embrace us,” said Fong.
“If you keep working towards your goal, anything is possible,” Dowell said.
Her next big step towards the Olympic games in Rio will be two competitions in June, including the women’s P&G Gymnastics Championships in St. Louis. She’s hoping to then qualify for the Women’s Olympic Trials in July.
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Lindsay Shively can be reached at lindsay.shively@kshb.com.
