Gabby Douglas’s Former Coach Liang Chow Once Doubted the Gymnast’s Ability to Reach the Olympics Before Hitting a ‘Three Peat’

The United States has produced several icons in the gymnastics realm, and Gabby Douglas is surely one of them. She has some remarkable achievements under her belt, and she still craves more every time she hits the gymnastics arena. The 28-year-old Douglas has become one of the most recognized figures in world gymnastics in the past few years. However, not everyone would be aware that she once had her career in doubt for the Olympics before winning three Olympic golds.

It was her former coach Liang Chow who was uncertain about her being ready for the biggest stage. Douglas revealed the instance in a book, which has left everyone bewildered. Let’s delve deeper and find out what led her coach to doubt her abilities for Olympic glory.

Was it to shape Gabby Douglas as a better gymnast?

In her book Grace, Gold, and Glory: My Leap of Faith, Douglas uncovered the incident. She recalls the day on September 10 when she and her mother went to Liang Chow’s gymnastics and dance institute in West Des Moines, where Chow gave her a reality check. She writes that it was a normal gym session that included practicing vault, bars, beam, and floor, and when everything was over, she sat down for a chitchat with Chow and expressed her desire to compete in the Olympics. She writes, “My dream is to get to the Olympics.” To which her coach replied, “I’ll be very straight with you. I see the possibility for you to go to the Olympics, but I cannot guarantee it will happen.”

According to Chow, her difficulty level and physical condition needed some rigorous training. To this, the Newport News native responded that she’ll make it happen by giving her one hundred percent each day. Later, she had to go through a dedicated session of twenty-eight hours each week, which shaped her to do better as an athlete than her previous thirty-six. She also reveals that they might sound like a few hours comparatively, but both of them focused on boosting the skills in that time frame. After that, her career graph only went upward, and she later trained with several coaches before making headlines for sharing the same training platform as Simone Biles.

Tidbits about her gymnastics training

The Olympian parted ways with the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy (WOGA), where she was training under Anastasia Liukin. There were speculations that she could train at the World Champions Center, the same academy where the queen of gymnastics, Biles, also sharpens her skills. However, the news was not confirmed from Douglas’ end, and fans are yet to get an answer about her training whereabouts.

Read More: Where Is Gabby Douglas Training? Gymnastics World Predicts Her Top 3 Destinations Ahead of Paris Olympics 2024

Four gymnasiums are in the headlines for becoming the next stop for her to train for upcoming competitions. Namely, these gyms are Empire Gymnastics, Texas Dreams, Metroplex, and Kurt Thomas, each located in Dallas, Texas. Douglas is yet to give a reaction to her training destination while keeping the guessing game on for her fans.