Gabby Douglas has opened up about the racism and lack of a father figure in her life that almost caused her to give up gymnastics for good to go work at Chick-fil-A.
Gabby may be one of America’s sweethearts now after snagging two gold medals at the 2012 Olympics in London, but the gold medalist almost gave up her dreams to work in fast food.
She was only 15-years-old when she was forced to leave her family in search of better training, and even had to come face to face with the overwhelming racist presence in her sport.
Douglas moved in with a family in West Des Moines so she could train with Liang Chow, the coach who was able to lead her to Olympic victory.
Even when the young Olympian was back home in Virginia, however, training for gymnastics was a hard thing to do when she was constantly being labeled as an outsider due to the color of her skin and the way she looked.
“I was just, you know, kind of getting racist jokes, kind of being isolated from the group,” she admitted. “So it was definitely hard. I would come home at night and just cry my eyes out.”
When she was only 12, training at one the gyms in Virginia, one of her coaches told her that she needed a nose job in front of all her other team mates. Instead of standing up for their team mate, all the other girls joined in on ridiculing Gabby.
She was the butt of all their jokes and they always asked her how she could breathe out of her flat nose.
Read the full story at PopularCritic.com
