Gabby Douglas biography
Gabby Douglas, in full Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas, (born December 31, 1995, Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S.), gymnast who, on the 2012 Olympic Games in London, grew to become each the primary American to assert gold medals within the workforce and particular person all-around occasions and the primary African American to win the all-around title.
Douglas grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, the place she practiced gymnastics from the age of six. In 2010—at age 14—she left her household and moved in with a number household in West Des Moines, Iowa, the place she began coaching with outstanding coach Liang Chow. Douglas quickly started to draw consideration at nationwide competitions—she completed fourth within the all-around occasion on the 2010 Nastia Liukin Supergirl Cup, and on the 2011 Visa Championships she tied for third on the uneven bars and positioned seventh all-around. She was named to the senior nationwide workforce and helped the United States earn the workforce gold on the 2011 world championships, the place she additionally positioned fifth on the uneven bars. Douglas’s talent on the uneven bars—particularly, her means to realize extraordinary peak within the air when releasing from the equipment—led U.S. workforce coordinator Martha Karolyi to dub her “the Flying Squirrel,” a nickname that Douglas and her coterie of followers embraced.
At the 2012 Visa Championships, Douglas narrowly misplaced the all-around gold to Jordyn Wieber, the reigning world and nationwide all-around champion. In addition to taking the all-around silver medal, Douglas claimed gold on the uneven bars and bronze within the flooring train. Weeks later, on the U.S. Olympic trials, Douglas narrowly edged out Wieber to assert the all-around title. With the victory Douglas secured an automated berth on the Olympic workforce. In London Douglas and her teammates—Wieber, Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney, and Kyla Ross—captured the primary U.S. girls’s workforce gold medal since 1996. Douglas then competed within the all-around occasion, posting robust scores throughout every rotation to complete with the highest total rating. Douglas additionally competed individually on the stability beam and the uneven bars however didn't medal in both occasion, ending in seventh and eighth place, respectively. Her memoir Grace, Gold and Glory: My Leap of Faith (cowritten with Michelle Burford) was launched in 2012.
Douglas took two years off from aggressive gymnastics earlier than returning to the U.S. nationwide workforce in November 2014. At the 2015 inventive gymnastics world championships, she gained a gold medal within the workforce occasion and a silver within the all-around. The following yr she gained a workforce gold on the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games however did not win a person medal.