The past and future of American gymnastics collide Saturday in Hartford, Connecticut. At the US Classic, the first step toward this summer's Olympic Trials in Minneapolis, the last three Olympic all-around champions – Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles and Suni Lee – will compete alongside one of the most talented groups of Olympic hopefuls in history. . It is a meeting full of stories, but Douglas's return to the sport is perhaps the most unexpected plot twist of this quad.
Twelve years after becoming the first Black gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title at the 2012 London Games and inspiring a generation of Black girls to pursue elite gymnastics, Douglas returned to competition at the American Classic in Katy, Texas, in April. Now 28, she sometimes seemed shaky and inconsistent and other times ready to regain Olympic focus.
At Katy, Douglas' difficulty scores on bars and beam were on par with the country's top gymnasts, and she was as good as ever performing a double twist Yurchenko vault. But she went off the bars twice, landed low on her beam dismount and went out of bounds on two rolling passes, finishing 11th overall.
But regardless of this summer's outcome, Douglas has said her quest to make the Paris team is as much about finishing her career on her terms as it is about proving she's one of the top five gymnasts in the country right now. For many of the young black women she competes with for those coveted positions, her return means even more.
“Seeing her up there on the podium [in London], I was like, 'Oh, I want to do that.' I want to be there someday,'” Kaliya Lincoln, 17, said during a national team camp earlier this year. “That moment inspired me.”
Twelve years ago, Lincoln saw Douglas win in London and redefined his goals. He never imagined that, more than a decade later, when he reached Olympic age in a sport once defined by youth, he would compete against Douglas for a spot on the 2024 Olympic team.
“I never in a million years thought I would ever compete against Gabby,” said Lincoln, who will share the court with Douglas for the first time on Saturday. “It's surreal. Seeing her passion and love for this sport after so many years is really inspiring.”
Until April, Douglas had not competed in elite gymnastics since the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where she became the first all-around champion since Nadia Comaneci to win the title and return to the Olympics four years later. In Rio, Douglas helped the American team win a second consecutive team gold and qualified for the uneven bars final, where she finished seventh.
Despite finishing third overall, Douglas was unable to defend her overall title due to the two-per-country rule. Her teammates Biles and Aly Raisman represented the United States and took gold and silver. Biles became the second black woman and fifth American to win the all-around Olympic tournament.
Five years later, at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Lee became the first Hmong American and first Asian American to win the title. In 2022, Konnor McClain led the first trio of Black gymnasts on the podium at the US Championships, and at the 2023 world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, in October, Biles led the first three Black gymnasts on the podium at the history of the world championship.
“I remember looking at Simone and thinking: we did it,” said two-time world champion Shilese Jones in Antwerp. Jones is the only woman to make both podiums, taking silver in the 2022 US all-around event and bronze at the 2023 worlds. “It's been a long time coming. Sometimes I feel like we're missing out.” outshine. This means a lot to younger girls and the black community.”
Jones, a favorite to make the Paris team, also credits Douglas' victory in London with changing the course of her career and life. “I watched the 2012 Olympics and thought, 'That's where I want to be. I want to be Gabby Douglas,'” she said. “That's when it hit me. Like, 'Oh, we can take this to another level.'”
Jones, 21, began formulating a plan. Three years later, at 13, he convinced his parents to move from their hometown of Seattle to Columbus, Ohio, so he could train at Buckeye Gymnastics alongside Douglas, who coached there during the 2016 Games.
“I thought, 'You're elite now, but you need to get somewhere where you're training with other elites,'” Jones said. “That's when I moved in and trained with Gabby. We became close and I got a different view of the Olympic-style athlete.”
Skye Blakely, who is also in the running to make this summer's Olympic team, was 8 years old when she watched Douglas climb to the top step of the Olympic podium and bow his head to receive his first Olympic gold medal.
“She was black, she looks like me, and she was someone I could relate to. I thought, 'Wow, that's a possibility.'”
Skye Blakely
Throughout her career, Blakely, 19, has trained at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in Texas, the same gym where Olympic champions Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin once trained. She said that she remembers hearing about her victories and watching replays of her performances on YouTube, but that she was not as shocked by them as she was when Douglas won in London.
“It was seeing Gabby compete with my own eyes,” Blakely said. “She was black, she looks like me and she was someone I could relate to. I thought, 'Wow, that's a possibility.' Since then, my goal has been to get there. I thought, 'I see the plan. I see the vision. Keep working hard and you can do it too.'”
With Douglas returning to the sport alongside two-time Olympian Biles, 27, in a field that could produce the first over-20 Olympic team in U.S. history, Douglas is once again helping to change perceptions. about what an Olympic gymnast is like.
“I'm only 17,” Lincoln says. “Now I look at it like I still have a lot of time. It's not, 'If I don't do well this season, then it's over.' I have many more years in this sport.”
This is also how Douglas once viewed his career. That's why he never used the word “retired” after Rio. But he knows this is his last round, so he's trying to take in every moment of the way.
“Happy and grateful to be back on the court doing what I love again,” Douglas wrote on social media after competing in Katy. “In anything, there are always problems to solve, improve and improve. I have never been more excited to get back in the gym and work even harder… See you in Hartford.”
