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Olivia Dunne is a Hillsdale, New Jersey native whose parents have athletic pasts of their own. Her dad was a member of the football team at Rutgers University, while her mom was a cheerleader who also did gymnastics, per NorthJersey.com. However, it wasn’t her mother who inspired Dunne to learn how to do a back handspring and a handstand on a balance beam. At age 3, Dunne saw her cousin wearing a pink, glittery leotard and fell in love with the look. “I was like, ‘Mom, I want that,’ and she said, ‘Well, you can’t have a leotard unless you do gymnastics,’” Dunne recalled to Elle in July 2023. “So I was like, ‘Sign me up.’”
Her parents obliged, and Dunne began training at a local gym. “I remember being quite strong for a 3-year-old,” said the athlete. Her interest in gymnastics soon became about so much more than a passion for the fashion, and at age 6, she upgraded to a new gym: the Eastern National Academy of Gymnastics in Paramus. The coaches at ENA Gymnastics train gymnasts from Level 3 all the way up to the Elite category, the highest level of competition, so it was the perfect fit for a serious young gymnast looking to develop her skills and start competing in meets.
It didn’t take Dunne long to impress one of her new coaches, Craig Zappa. “She is very smart about what she does and she learns very fast,” he told NorthJersey.com.
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Source: NewsFinale
