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Gabby Douglas

Source: D Dipasupil/Getty Images / D Dipasupil/Getty Images

Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas stunned the world in 2012 by becoming the first African American in history to win the individual all-around gold medal at the Summer Olympics.  Behind her meteoric rise was a supportive family willing to sacrifice everything for years to help her dream. Now 19, Gabby is ready to do it all over again in hopes of making it back to the medal podium in 2016. The bi-coastal Douglas family shuttles between California and Ohio to support Gabby’s training regimen while also juggling their own lives.  Her brother John is the family’s second Olympic hopeful in track and field, while devoted sisters Arie and Joy are eager to blaze their own paths. “Momager” Natalie keeps this tight-knit family in-check, knowing regardless of what happens, “Team Douglas” has already won gold.

Gabby Douglas, the 2012 Olympic all-around gold medalist, artisanal delts are more than mere vanity plates; they are the tangible representation of the work she’s done so far, and of the seriousness of her intention to become the first woman since Czech gymnast Vera Caslavska in 1968 to repeat as Olympic all-around champ, and the first American in history to accomplish the feat.

We will get to see peeks behind the  long hours.Her story of triumph warms every heart. But she is also a part of the contemporary sports world, where elite athletic talent is perceived as an investment vehicle, a human hedge fund over which interested parties bitterly vie for control. In Gabby’s case this has meant the appearance of a father who, after years of alleged neglect, reappeared just as his daughter was becoming an Olympian, and a gym so anxious to keep the 14-year-old child it had trained for six years that its ownership offered to cover mortgage payments and give her financially struggling mother a job so that the daughter would stay and the gym could benefit from her success.

This will make great television. What do you think? Will you tune in?

 

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Olympic Star Gabby Douglas Heads To TV With Reality Show “Douglas Family Gold’  was originally published on elev8.hellobeautiful.com