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.
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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.
