GYM: Gabby Douglas (Beam)WATCH Gabrielle Douglas on beam at the American Cup!#ATTAC2016 #RoadToRio USA Gymnastics
Posted by NBC Olympics on Saturday, March 5, 2016
It’s countdown to the 2016 Olympics in Rio and elite athletes are showing up and showing out in preparation for the highly anticipated event. One athlete specifically, Gabby Douglas, an original member of the gold medal-winning “Fierce Five” appeared at the AT&T American Cup where she gave a stellar preview of her balance beam routine.
Now 20, Douglas, who made history as the first African American woman in Olympic history to become an individual all-around champion and the first American gymnast to win gold for both the individual and team competitions in 2012, is back with a vengeance. And it appears the judges think so too, as her beam routine struck gold! Should Douglas get similar results this summer, she’ll become the first woman to do so since Věra Čáslavská in 1968. In other words, the Virginia native is gearing up to make history once again.
In the meantime, you can follow her journey to the 2016 Olympics in a new Oxygen docu-series, “Douglas Family Gold.” According to the press release, the series follows the American artistic gymnast “as Gabby trains tirelessly in Ohio with her grandmother by her side, the rest of the family keeps busy juggling Gabby’s business and their own lives back in California.”
Starring alongside Douglas is her mother, Natalie Hawkins, sisters Arielle “Arie” Hawkins, Joyelle “Joy” Douglas, brother Johnathan Douglas and grandmother Carolyn Ford. As fans know too well, Douglas is attempting this year to become the first Olympic all-around champion to compete in successive Olympic Games since Nadia Comaneci in 1976 and 1980. As previously reported, she earned silver behind Simone Biles in the 2015 World Championships all-around after taking all of 2013 and 2014 off from competition.
Catch Douglas and her loved ones on May 25 at 10 p.m. EST on Oxygen. Will you be watching? Sound off in the comment section below.
