Gabby Douglas Morphs Into World’s Greatest Gymnast

Gabby Douglas was given the nickname Flying Squirrel for a reason.

Simple.

That girl can fly and has become a gymnast of distinction and charm, an athletic figure with courage and guts of a stuntwoman, a young lady of soul and aplomb. Ladies and gentlemen, at long last the demographics of gymnastics for the Americans are greatly meaningful. That means gymnastics is back to normal with a teenager putting the U.S women’s gymnastics team back on a pedestal. At a young age, Douglas’ had nothing else on her mind other than to pursue her dream of becoming a gymnast. And look where she’s at today. She’s an Olympian, and not just a star of the sport, but a winner, a 16-year-old who left her family to fulfill her dream in Des Moines.

So here was her starting point, and as it happened late Thursday afternoon, she had an exceptional performance in her Olympic all-around debut. The exuberance and calmness she showed in competition was roughly an advantage for her to perform her routines brilliantly and in style, and because Gabrielle Douglas stayed calmed and nailed her acrobatic and signature floor routines, she secured the all-around gold medal making her the first African American to win the women’s all-around gymnastics championship at the London Olympics. She won one of the more popular events in gymnastics, wonderfully fitting the same category as Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin, who are the only other Americans to win the Olympic all-around gold. After the victory, she stepped up to the podium with a widened smile, just as shiny as her gold medal, an electric smile that will feature on Wheaties boxes and gleam on magazine covers.

With a gold medal draped around her neck, becoming the fourth female American gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title, Douglas heard the national anthem as the American flag lifted to the rafters. A bouquet in one hand, while showing off her gold, she celebrated on the brightest stage and fought back tears — a touching ending to the opening chapter of a promising future ahead. It was a day of perseverance and self-confidence as Douglas came into a stiff competition with the Russians, Victoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina. The mind-blowing gold medal win happened when we least expected it, from a girl no one every thought would beat Russian sensation Mustafina, but as we witnessed with our own two eyes, Douglas was fierce and had mental toughness all along. On the subject of Douglas, a fiery competitor who gave it her best, she competes with heart and has the mettle to flourish into a star after a historic breakthrough that reshaped the brand of USA Gymnastics.

Douglas, who also became the first U.S. woman ever to win gold in both the team competition and all-around, earned a staggering 62.232 score, beating Komova and Mustafinia. The Russians couldn’t secure the gold medal, as they would have liked. But, in the end of it all, Komova got the silver and Mustafinia ended up with the bronze. And unfortunately, Aly Raisman, Douglas’ teammate, failed to keep her balance on the beam and fell short of winning the bronze in a tiebreaker, so settled for fourth place.

It’s amazing to see a young black woman reach her dream, becoming an American gymnast and representing our country with dignity and pride. She was one of the more lucky ones who made it, and on the top of it, won a pair of Olympic gold. Not many teenagers can leave London and tell you stories for ages about the time they’ve won gold medals. Not many teenagers can tell you stories about battling it out with world-class athletes all over the world. Not many teenagers can tell you they represented this country and played a sport in the summer games that they are profoundly obligated to playing.

But Gabby can tell you. She can also later decide to be the subject of a book if she chooses to write a story about her Olympic adventure as a young girl in London. Meanwhile, she may have broken the color barriers for African Americans who’ve always had a dream to push toward gymnastics. The Russians were supposed to win gold in both the team and all-around competition and were more experienced and talented, but couldn’t match Douglas’ level of performances. It had to be a proud accomplishment for Douglas to beat two of the best gymnasts Russia could offer, and certainly she took on the challenge, confronted the tension and exceeded expectations as the United States were long overdue and were finally superior again, with Gabby anchoring the USA gymnastics team.

When she took the lead early on, and while Komova and Mustafinia made critical mistakes to smear their hopes of Olympic gold, she never lost it and continued to perform her routines perfectly, crushing the Russian girls’ hearts in an unevenly matched competition to say the least. What happened was, needing almost a perfect score to move into the lead, Komova became more and more frustrated, more and more unconfident and uncertain of herself, a bit intimidated against the United States. Douglas began the night at North Greenwich Arena atop the scoreboard, and from then on out, she never looked back, holding on to a commanding lead. After the final results, Komova finished with a 15.1, well short of Douglas’ impressive score. Silver, nonetheless, was awarded to Komova, after all. Bronze, however, was awarded to Mustafinia.

The four all-around scores for Douglas, no surprise, ranged from 15.033 to 15.996, giving her enough cushion to fall sound asleep in the middle of the competition and then wake up hours later with the lead still. In over three days, amazingly — for those who haven’t watched closely — she earned a 15.000 or better in 11 of 12 performances. She’s a breakout gymnasts, a star who was born. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a rarity for a sport of equilibrium and coordination. As a teenager with lots of energy, she is alarming and adept at keeping her balance, extremely gifted at leaping and rotating in the air. It’s very seldom, well, from what we’ve seen all week, that Douglas makes an error, and usually she breezes through the routines and racks up an overwhelming score.

When it comes to gymnastics, no one ever imagined Douglas morphing into the world’s greatest gymnasts, surmounting past her teammate and friend Jordyn Wieber, the reigning world champion and was a favorite entering the Olympics last week but failed to qualify for the gymnastics all-around final. But then a new kid arrived on the block, and stunned the world. There were no burden of expectations, not even once did she fear failure.

She wasn’t fearful of the challenge and never ran from pressure, but grasped the opportunity to dig for gold.

And certainly, she was motivated and in demand to get her hands on that gold.

She is remarkably good as gold.

2012 London Olympics: Jordyn Wieber Deprived of Fulfilled Promise

The loss of widely the top gymnast in the world, Jordyn Wieber, is agonizing and heart-rending, and some of our American spectators expressed grief for considerably one of the best U.S. Olympic hopefuls, as I did, feeling truly sorry for a girl who was in tears after finishing third on her team in the all-around scoring.

Unable to advance further with her teammates Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman, who both sailed through qualifying, Wieber wobbled on the balance beam and stepped out of bounds on the floor exercise mat, a few uncharacteristic mistakes that cost her tremendously and eliminated her from contention. Her best friend and competitor Raisman knocked her out of the finals to end the reigning world champions fulfilled promise of trying for gold Thursday. At noontime Sunday, Wieber was not Wieber and stumbled on the biggest stage to miss out on all the fun coming up this week, disqualified sooner than later –unfitted to conquer a medal in an event that she trained and waited for her whole career.

The afternoon was anything but kind to Wieber, and she flubbed early on a vault landing by stepping out, and then broke her form during an uneven bars routine. It was bad timing for a 17-year-old girl who was expected to go out there and perform her routines, expected to go out there and break a leg, but sadly it came to a poignant end. Her personal coach, John Geddert, if no one else, knows she was greatly in pursuit of earning an Olympic gold medal and can imagine what she’s feeling after fading in an event she was favored to rock her own world. But she’s not that girly rock star, not in these games, and strangely won’t join her teammates for the challenge as the bigger story seems to be her relapse, which no one ever saw coming until it happened before their very eyes. It was mind-blowing to watch Wieber, winner of the individual all-around world championship about nine months ago, fold and botch her chances of meeting qualifications to revel in the moment of gratification.

When you prepare and spend hours practicing, the last thing you want is for an event to go to waste, particularly after staying late nights in the gym to nail down a routine. And she did just that, no doubt, but had a tremendous amount of pressure on her to sustain seminal excellence because she’s one of the most appreciated American athletes at the London Games. A lifelong wish, which wasn’t the way Wieber thought it would be, fell short and the day turned into a disheartening nightmare, one she’d like to have back if possible. But now, even if the results are not too delightful and will emotionally hurt for a while, it’s only good to move forward and place the dreadful failures behind her and take it as a learning experience.

This is what happened to a teenager who competes in her first Olympic games. So what happened is somewhat surprising but just as shocking, looking at her accomplishments in prior years. The point is, she was overzealous and jittery, not completely focused but excited to be part of the fun in London. She is a natural talent, the new attractive among gymnast stars and a representative for the U.S., but the downside is that she’s not invited to give it her best effort in the finals, which would be a perfect time to redeem herself of woes and affliction. Wieber encountered a misadventure that broke her heart, and a shaky competition wasn’t bittersweet, stopping her of the possibility to take a prestigious gold medal. The honorable prize on this day slipped away and she wiped away tears in frustration and sadness. Maybe more so, this was new to Wieber, only losing an all-round title twice to fellow Americans in both events since the 2008 season.

There was no whining nor was she making any excuses for her failures and realized she was the only one to fault, making off quickly without interviewing with reporters afterwards, distraught for disappearing and making numerous mistakes that forestalled her attempt of representing the United States as one of the best gymnasts. It’s certain she had the worst moment of her life, and everything went wrong as aspirations were taking away from Wieber. The world came crashing down indeed, and by now, she’d like to have a second chance but realize it’s far too late. The reality set in as soon as it happened, and her sheer dominance and constant training stunningly disappeared during a year she was considered the next great American gymnastics star.

Right now, setting history in a negative way to become the first world champion to not qualify for the individual all-around final, Wieber failed to advance and placed a total of 60.032. And with Douglas, who also stepped out of bounds on her floor exercise, the last of four rotations for the U.S., had an average of 60.265 points and qualified. Credit was given to captain Aly Raisman for finishing second overall that knocked off both of them, as Douglas impressively finished third. Going into the all-round, Wieber and Douglas were the two favorites, with at least one of them favored to win a medal. But looks as if Douglas is the U.S. gymnastics team only hope, if not Raisman. There’s no shortage of confidence without Wieber, but she was an antidote to heal the wounds for the most horrid farce of the Beijing Games four years ago.

Wieber had her chance and blundered. She took an enormous fall, a disastrous lapse to keep her out of conversations for mental mistakes that ruined what was supposed to be a refreshing story. But as it turned out, Wieber’s dream is deferred.