Iowa’s Gabby Douglas Heading to London Olympics 2012
Former Olympian Shawn Johnson has some words of advice for Douglas, who lives and trains in West Des Moines.
Gabby Douglas’s dream is now reality: She is one of five members of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team.
Douglas won the top spot on the team Sunday night with a score of 15.3 on her final event of the night, the floor exercise. With that, she won the all-around title, something West Des Moines native Shawn Johnson did four years ago at the Olympic trials.
Douglas has become one of Iowa’s adopted daughters, two years ago leaving her family behind in Virginia to train under Liang Chow at Chow’s Gymnastics in West Des Moines.
Douglas finished Friday’s preliminary round in second place. Following a lacking routine on the uneven bars and a sluggish beam routine, she then excelled on the floor and vault, to finish three-tenths of a point behind leader Jordyn Wieber, The Des Moines Register reported.
Johnson, the West Des Moines native who won four gymnastic medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, was quoted in The Register offering some advice for Douglas:
“Live it up,” she said. “Take pictures. Take it all in. It’s a once-in-a lifetime opportunity.”
Alan Dobbs
10:55 am on Monday, July 2, 2012
With all the talk of the bomb threat that I heard on this morning news. I am worried that a bomb will be placed on the plane with our Olmpians on it. Why can't we have a private plane take them over to England?