THE REPORTER

July, 25 2012

Olympic gymnast, Gabby Douglas shares her IOWA story Pg. 6

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to the IOWA

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ike the cornstalks she could monitor from

her window last summer, Gabby Douglas has been growing steadily during her two years in Iowa.

The 16-year-old gym-nast, bound for the U.S. Olympic Trials as a vir-tual shoo-in to make the team that will compete in London, has been em-bracing the agricultural lifestyle in her adopted home state while her ath-

Gabby Douglas’ second family provides her with full Iowa experienceBy MARK EMMERTRegister

letic skills have acceler-ated to the point that she finished second in the all-around at the U.S. national championships Sunday.

Douglas has her own bedroom for the first time, a new family that includes four little sisters, and a fan base that is rapidly expanding beyond Iowa.

“I love when people come up to me and go, ‘Oh, my gosh; we love you.’ It just makes my heart feel so good,” Douglas said at a Monday breakfast with the

media, just hours after fall-ing two-tenths of a point from tying Jordyn Wieber for the national title.

“We did the Fan Fest yesterday and it was crazy. People were screaming my name. I felt so bad for the people who didn’t get au-tographs, but I tried to stay out there as long as I could.”

Douglas is a rising star who has become plant-ed in West Des Moines since moving from her native Virginia at age 14 to train with Liang Chow.

Chow arranged for her to live with some friends, Travis and Missy Parton, who have four daughters ages 6 to 10 and a house that abuts some farmland.

“She had fun watching the corn grow from these little sprouts,” said Mis-sy, whom Gabby calls her “second mom.” “We’d take pictures every once in a while, go walk down into the cornfield and take it at different stages. Because it looks deceiving. We’d tell her, ‘It’s a lot taller than

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Her coach, Liang Chow, expects Sun-day’s performances to outstrip those on Friday, in terms of difficulty and results.

“This is the beginning of the competition,” he said. “And I believe that on Day 2, we’re all going to be loosening up a little bit, all of the kids, because they are testing the waters, and then they can be much more aggressive on Day 2. That’s just the normal situation.”

“I love when people come up to me and go, ‘Oh, my gosh; we love you.’ It just makes my heart feel so good.”

A little coaching

-Chow was a member of the Chinese Olympic gymnastics team for over ten years.

-AFter moving to the United states he coached Shawn Johnson in the 2008 Olympics.

gabby douglas

it looks.’ And then when they came and harvested the corn, and she saw the tractors and that whole operation, it was amazing to her. So it was kind of fun to walk somebody through that whole process of it.

“She also loved the State Fair. We try to give her as much of a taste of Iowa as we can.”

Douglas is the youngest of four children, so she has always been used to a busy household, said her mother, Natalie Hawkins. But she was very shy growing up in Virginia.

“I could never get her to leave my side. She’d hide behind my leg. She did not ever want to

be separated from me,” Hawkins said. “And now, I just look at her, and she’s just blossomed.”

Douglas said it took awhile for her to become comfortable as the older sibling to a quartet of little strangers. She remembers hiding in her room listen-ing to them running the hallways, hopping in and out of the shower, and wondering what she’d got-ten into.

But Parton said her daughters adore the aspir-ing Olympian living in their spare bedroom, and quickly began climbing on her and hugging her. Douglas sometimes pulls duty as a baby-sitter,

renting a movie, making popcorn and painting nails with the girls.

She does her school-work online now — his-tory is her favorite subject — because of the de-mands of her gymnastics training. Douglas attend-ed Valley High for several months last year, earning the twin nick-names of “Shorty” and “Miss Olym-pics” from her new classmates.

“It’s been our goal to just provide her with what she needs ... so that she can achieve her goals,” Parton said. “She’s

the spotlight. She’s the one who’s made the sacri-fices. The determination that she has, leaving her family at 14 years old to move to a different city. I’m just so amazed by her and we’re so proud of her.”

“I love when people come up to me and go, ‘Oh, my gosh; we love you.’ It just makes my heart feel so good.”

The Perfect Landing

Squirrel’

‘The Flying

2012 Olympic Gymnastics Team