Gabby Douglas was just 16 when she caught the world's attention at the 2012 Olympics where
she won gold in the all-around event. From her early days on the gym floor to her life after
finding Olympic fame, the transformation of Gabby Douglas has been quite the stunning one indeed.
Gabby Douglas' talent for gymnastics was apparent from a young age,
although it would be a few years before she actually started training in the sport.
As noted by Biography, Douglas learned her first moves from her older sister, Arielle,
who was a gymnast herself. At the tender age of 3, the younger Douglas was turning cartwheels.
By the time she was 4, she was doing those cartwheels one-handed.
“I taught her a cartwheel… the next day I see her doing one-handed cartwheels. I’m like,
I didn’t teach you that. That was not part of the lesson yet!”
Arielle convinced their mother, Natalie Hawkins, to enroll Douglas in gymnastics at the age of 6.
While she was very young when she started her gymnastics training,
Douglas remembers that first class, as she told Harper's Bazaar. She said,
"I was young and remember cutting people in line for the trampoline."
Per the African American Literature Book Club, it wasn't long before she proved her skills.
Just two years after beginning her formal gymnastics training, Douglas won Virginia's
state gymnastics championship. She racked up more wins over the years, and it was
soon evident that she wasn't just a talented gymnast, but a possible Olympic contender.
By the age of 14, Gabby Douglas knew that for her to make it to the Olympics,
she needed a change. She'd already been homeschooled for years to focus on her training,
and she set her sights on training with Liang Chow,
a coach who has worked with the likes of Shawn Johnson. Via Vanity Fair, she told her mom,
"I've got to get a coach I can believe in, and who believes in me.”
The catch? Chow's gym was in West Des Moines, Iowa — not exactly within commuting distance
of her home in Virginia. Still, Douglas was determined to work with him. Douglas' mom
eventually agreed to let her move to Iowa, but the family couldn't afford to move with her.
At 14, Douglas was too young to live on her own, but she was taken in by a foster family,
the Partons. Missy Parton, whose mother had recently died, was happy to open her home
to the teenager and became like a second mom to her. She told The New York Times,
"God never took something away without filling the hole, without replacing it with something.”
Moving halfway across the country was not easy for the young Gabby Douglas. Not only did she feel
seriously out of place as one of few Black people in West Des Moines, Iowa, as she told The New York
Times, but she was also extremely homesick. In fact, her foster mother, Missy Parton, told Vanity
Fair that Douglas missed her family so much that she considered going home after her family visited
her over Christmas. Douglas also felt much anxiety about chasing her Olympic dream. Parton said,
"It was overwhelming to her that this was it, what she had been training for [nine] or 10 years.”
It would be years before Douglas opened up about the fears she faced on her road to the Olympics.
In a video for Time Firsts in 2017, she said,
"When I started this journey, I never knew what it took to get to the Olympics — I had
a lot of self doubt [...] You have to believe that you're good enough and not give up."
Douglas eventually found the resolve to stick with her dream,
no matter how tough the journey. Parton told Vanity Fair that
"Once she made the decision 'I'm going to stay,' that was the moment of change
within her [...] A new form of Gabby came out."
Changing coaches turned out to be the right move for Gabby Douglas.
Even before she headed to the Olympics in 2012, she had made a name for herself at the Pacific
Rim Gymnastics Championships earlier that year where she came in first on the uneven bars,
earning herself the nickname of the "Flying Squirrel," as noted by PopSugar.
She also performed well at the 2012 AT&T American Cup where she was part of the U.S. team as an
alternate. This means that her score didn't actually count, but it is noteworthy that she
had the highest overall score of all official and unofficial competitors, ESPN reported.
Douglas' Olympic dreams were finally coming together,
and she started to believe that she truly could make it to the Games.
While she had hoped to make it to the Olympics, she told Teen Vogue,
"It took a long time for me to see my own potential."
She also said she didn't really start believing in herself
until only a few months before the Olympic Trials, noting,
"Finally something clicked and I knew I could be one of the best [...] It was a game changer.
Now I'm like, 'I am going for this. I'm going for it all.”
She was right. At the Trials, not only did Douglas make the U.S. team,
but she also took first place, as noted by Bleacher Report.
Ahead of the 2012 Olympic Trials, Gabby Douglas told Seventeen that she hoped making the team
as an African American woman, quote, "would ... inspire people and inspire a nation." She added:
"I would love to be a role model."
She couldn't have known then just how big of a role model she would become, especially
since she wasn't the favorite to win gold at the Olympics. When asked about her chances, former
U.S. gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi said that he didn't think she'd be able to beat Jordyn Wieber.
Douglas proved the naysayers wrong, however. Not only did she help her team win gold, but she also
won gold in the all-around — making her the first woman of color to do so. She told Teen Vogue,
"It was just insane knowing that I had spent my whole life dreaming
about this one specific goal and achieved it.”
After winning gold at the 2012 Olympics,
Gabby Douglas turned her efforts to writing. Her Olympic journey was an inspiring one,
and she shared that story with her many fans in the book "Grace, Gold, and Glory:
My Leap of Faith," which was written with Michelle Burford. Per its Amazon listing, the autobiography
"Chronicles Gabrielle's journey from her first
practice to becoming a 2012 gold-winning U.S. gymnast."
The following year, Douglas released another book called "Raising the Bar,"
which she described to the African American Literature Book Club:
"[It's a] picture book for younger readers. [...] [It
was] all about my life now, since the Olympics."
Douglas told the outlet that she had long been interested in writing,
keeping a number of diaries over the years. While she had never finished those diaries,
she became determined to share her story after the Olympics because,
"[I wanted] to let anyone facing hardships know that your dream is still possible."
Gabby Douglas proved her talent not only for acrobatics but also for performance at the
2012 Olympics. After finding fame, she used those talents to launch an acting career,
starting with a small appearance in a 2012 episode of The Vampire Diaries.
While Douglas' acting resume isn't bursting with credits, she has proven herself to be
just as agile of an actress as she is a gymnast. Her other acting roles include episodes of Nicky,
Ricky, Dicky & Dawn and Helpsters. Douglas also appeared in the TV movie Love, of Course
and the film Same Difference. Her most notable role, though, is playing her adult self in the
2014 Lifetime movie The Gabby Douglas Story. Douglas had always hoped to play herself if a
movie was made about her life, telling the African American Literature Book Club the year before,
"I’d like to play myself, to be sure to capture my personality and my style."
Gabby Douglas is no stranger to television. Outside of the Olympics and her acting career,
she's also starred in a reality show about her and her family. The short-lived series from Oxygen,
titled Douglas Family Gold, lasted only one season, with six episodes that aired in 2016.
The show doesn't just follow Douglas and her family as they support her gymnastics career,
but it also covers other milestones, such as her high school graduation.
While the show doesn't appear to have been formally canceled, no episodes have aired
since 2016. Who knows what the future holds, though? Perhaps we'll see more episodes of
Douglas Family Gold in the future or even another reality show about the talented athlete.
Fans had high hopes for Gabby Douglas at the 2016 Olympics, while Douglas herself
set out to defend her all-around title. Ahead of the Games, she told Teen Vogue:
"I love the challenge. [...] I love to push limits. I feel
like I haven't reached my full potential yet."
Unfortunately, Douglas' performance at the 2016 Olympics was not as impressive as her 2012 run,
although it was a technicality that kept her from defending her title,
as noted by Biography. While Douglas came in third in the qualifying rounds of the all-around,
two of her teammates, Aly Raisman and Simone Biles, scored higher. Due to a rule that only
two gymnasts per team can compete in an event, Douglas was unable to go for the gold. She did
compete in the uneven bars and beam competitions, though, coming in eighth and seventh. While
her scores didn't earn her an individual medal, they did help her team win the gold.
While Douglas was disappointed, she didn't seem bitter about her performance. In a post-Games
interview, she admitted she had "pictured it differently." Still, she remained stoic, saying,
"I'm just going to take this experience as a really good, positive one."
You don't have to know much about Gabby Douglas to know that she's a star,
but even if you didn't follow her during the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, her 2021 run on The Masked
Dancer — a spinoff of The Masked Singer — would prove that to you. The show, like the singing
competition, features celebrities performing in elaborate costumes which conceal their faces.
Douglas danced her heart out week after week on the show, eventually coming away with the crown.
“It was my first time performing and not being judged. I had so much fun
and I’m grateful and so honored.”
Douglas' performance on the show had fans wondering if she'd ever consider competing
for the Mirror Ball Trophy on Dancing with the Stars. Douglas hinted that it's possible,
but that she had actually turned down appearing on the competition multiple times in the past.
As she explained to Hollywood Life, The Masked Dancer is much more her jam because
"it's more about having fun than dancing and ... not about judging and criticism or even denying.
[...] It's literally going outside yourself and inspiring people in their daily lives."
Does Gabby Douglas have plans to compete in the future? Per The Sun, she hasn't formally announced
her retirement, but she also didn't compete in the Olympic Trials for the Tokyo Olympics.
In 2017, she told NBC Sports that she was taking a break from gymnastics,
but did appear to be keeping her options open. She said that her dream had been "to go to two
Olympics," so it's possible that, having met that goal, she's not eager to get back to the grind.
While she hasn't returned to training, it should be noted that Douglas doesn't
appear to have filed paperwork to remove herself from the drug testing agency that
tracks Olympic athletes — something that typically indicates an official retirement.
Olympic gymnasts typically retire young, with most hanging up their leotards by their early 20s,
per Bustle. That doesn't mean that we won't see Douglas making a comeback, though.
As Insider pointed out, Oksana Chusovitina headed to the Tokyo Olympics — her eighth
time competing in the Games — at the age of 46. That's what we like to see!