Hot! Dominique Dawes First Person Account Of Her Time With First Lady Michelle Obama Delegation At London Games

LONDON

Editor's note: Gold-medal Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes is covering the London Games for FoxSports.com. She is the co-chair of the President s Council of Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and has worked with first lady Michelle Obama's Let s Move! initiative, which is designed to combat childhood obesity. Obama invited Dawes to be part of her delegation while she was in London. Here is Dawes' first-person account:

I was honored to be selected as a member of the first lady s Olympic delegation. It was a humbling experience.

The visit started about 7:40 a.m. Friday with a briefing in which Mrs. Obama s team prepped me and fellow former Olympians Brandi Chastain, Summer Sanders and Grant Hill and ex-Paralympian Gabriel Diaz de Leon about our plans for the day.

Then came one of our first perks as members of the delegation: We received a gift packet with Presidential Olympic pins with an inscription by both the first lady and her husband, President Barack Obama. I have many Olympic pins from multiple games. Pin trading is huge during the Olympics, though I won t be handing out any of these pins. Well, maybe just a few.

Mrs. Obama then joined us, and as always, she was extremely warm and friendly. I ve done a fair amount of work with her through my role as the co-chair of the President s Council of Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and her Let s Move! initiative, which is designed to combat childhood obesity.

The first lady has described herself as a people person. She is down to earth and easy to relate to, and I can tell she genuinely enjoys interacting with others.

Friday was no different. After we spent some time catching up and posing for group photos, we all were rushed off to the motorcade. (A little insider secret: I ve been told to never be late for the motorcade because if you miss it, you miss it. Once the president or, in this case, the first lady is in the car, it s on its way.)

So my fellow athletes and I couldn t help but laugh at ourselves as we ended up sprinting to our vehicle in fear we would miss our ride to the first lady s next destination.

Our first stop was USA House, the home base for the US Olympic Team during the games, and we got to speak with some current Olympians. I was told beforehand that I would get to introduce the first lady, which I m always honored to do but it means I had to write a speech of sorts. Now, if you know me well or have watched any of the videos I ve done for FOXSports.com, you know I tend to speak off-the-cuff, so it was uncharacteristic having to script what I was going to say. I guess that was a taste of what politicians have to deal with. Better to be safe when it comes to selecting my words rather than possibly putting my foot in mouth during the introduction.