A Very Long Journey Was Very Swift
Josh Haner/The New York Times
Gabby Douglas performed in floor exercise, her last discipline en route to the gold medal. More Photos »
By JULIET MACUR
LONDON — To become the Olympic champion in the individual all-around event, Gabby Douglas first had to leave everything she knew best.
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She had to pack up her bedroom in Virginia Beach, Va., where she lived with her mother, two sisters and brother. She had to say goodbye to her two dogs, who used to sleep in her bed, and bid farewell to the beach, where she loved to ride waves on her boogie board.
But it was time to take the leap, however heartbreaking and awkward it would be. Even at 14, Douglas knew that.
So off she went about 1,200 miles to West Des Moines, Iowa, to train with a coach from China and live with a white family she had never met. Douglas remembers thinking when she arrived that she must be the only black person in the state.
“I was unpacking and saying, Holy cow, what am I doing?” said Douglas, who is 16. “It was like, Where do I put everything? Oh, snap, where are the spoons? I’d wake up and say, This isn’t my bed set, where am I?”
As it turned out, Douglas did exactly what she needed to do to become Olympic champion Thursday when she defeated two Russians.
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