Olympic Silver Medalist, Dairy-Free Advocate Dotsie Bausch Joins EcoAthletes Champions Roster

“Someone needs to do something and that someone was me.”

So said Dotsie Bausch, a former Olympic silver medalist for Team USA in team pursuit cycling and dairy-free activist, when she launched Switch4Good, a nonprofit dedicated to the fact that you don’t need dairy in your diet to become an elite athlete, in 2018. They produced an ad that tweaked their omnipresent Got Milk! counterparts. It ran only once during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on NBC Sports before the group behind the Got Milk! ads forced the network to pull it. But the ad went viral, garnering the nascent organization more coverage than it could have ever imagined.

Bausch then starred in the 2019 “The Game Changers” movie, which chronicles the dangerous myth that meat and dairy are necessary for elite athletic performance. Directed by Academy Award winner Louie Psihoyos and executive produced by Oscar winner James Cameron. The Game Changers, just one week after its release, became the #1 downloaded film of all time on iTunes.

Deeply concerned about the massive greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) contributions from the dairy industry, Bausch has again decided “to do something”, this time joining the #ClimateComeback by becoming EcoAthletes’ newest Champion.

“Dotsie is an incredible advocate for a healthy lifestyle, a healthy dairy-free diet and a healthy climate and that will make her an ideal EcoAthletes Champion,” enthused EcoAthletes founder and President Lew Blaustein. “We can’t wait to work with her thanks to her Pied Piper-like ability to bring people along with her, her strategic savvy and her history of overcoming formidable obstacles.”

The Kentucky-born Bausch’s journey to the London 2012 Olympic podium, to becoming an evangelist for healthy, dairy free living and to a career as a successful entrepreneur, was littered with boulder-sized obstacles.

Indeed.

“I wasn’t an athlete growing up and I suffered from anorexia,” Bausch shared. “I spiraled, attempting suicide in Pennsylvania during my early 20s. Fortunately I survived. I had to make a decision about what to do with the rest of my life.”

She moved to Los Angeles, heard a therapist speak about conquering fear, and ended up working with her for two years. Towards the end of their time together, as Bausch was regaining her health, the therapist made a suggestion that changed the course of her life.

“I was an extreme over-exercising type of anorexic,” said Bausch. “Figuring there was a competitor in there somewhere, my therapist recommended I take up a sport. We decided on cycling. So, I bought a bike and fell in love with it on Day 1.”

After cycling for a couple of months, the then 26-year-old Bausch took part in the 1998 California AIDS ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

“It was a 700-mile ride and we camped at night, it felt good” Bausch recalled. “After the ride, one of the guys said ‘hey, you might have some talent.’ So, I started racing. And 13 years later, I was on the podium at London 2012. At 39 years old!”

At around the same time as her cycling career was taking off, Bausch got involved in the animal rights and the dairy-free movements.

“Hey, I ate animals for 34, 35 years,” Bausch noted. “The more I learned about the human and animal health costs, as well as the harm to the environment from the dairy industry, the more passionate I became. At first, I kept it quiet, then I couldn’t do that anymore.”

The aforementioned Switch4Good campaign was one result of her attitudinal shift.

“I saw a Got Milk! ad during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Trials that really disturbed me,” recounted Bausch. “A mom was saying to her daughter, an athlete, ‘I’m behind you; I drank milk as a kid and so should you!’ So, I made calls to funders, got a production team together. Six weeks later we had an ad with Olympians who don’t drink milk. It ran in the Washington, DC market twice and the rest is history.

Bausch looks forward to making more history as an EcoAthletes Champion: “We’re heading in the wrong direction on climate; we must change course. I’ve seen the power of athletes who speak up about the benefits of a dairy-free diet. I’m excited to be part of an organization like EcoAthletes that helps athletes lead on climate.”

You can follow Dotsie on Instagram and Twitter. And follow Switch4Good on Instagram and Twitter