Gabby Douglas: Everything You Need to Know About the Gold Medal-Winning Gymnast

Flying Squirrel takes home another victory at London 2012—find out more about her now!

By John Boone Aug 02, 2012 8:51 PMTags
Gabby DouglasNick Laham/Getty Images

A three-peat has never been sweeter for the good ol' USA. Today, 16-year-old gymnast Gabby Douglas won the gold medal in the individual all-around, marking the third consecutive Olympic win in the category for America (following Carly Patterson in 2004 and Nastia Liukin in 2008).

Gabby—who finished with a total score of 62.232—also became the first African-American Olympic all-around champ and first American woman to win gold in both the team and all-around finals. Not too shabby, eh?!

So to celebrate her victory, we now present everything you need to know about Team USA's golden child:

Check out all the Olympic tattos that the proud atheletes of Team USA are rocking!

This Isn't Her First Gold: As we mentioned, Gabby already scored another medal while competing in London. Along with teammates McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber (aka the Fab Five), Douglas won the team gold medal just two days ago.

Douglas was the only one of the quintet to perform all four events (vault, uneven bars, balance beam, floor); their win in the team competition marks the first one since the 1996 Olympics' Magnificent Seven took home the title. And, FYI, she's still got a chance to take even more gold home, as she's set to compete in the uneven bars on Aug. 6 and balance beam Aug. 7.

Gabby's teammates were quick to show their love when she won the individual all-around today, with Wieber tweeting, "Congrats @gabrielledoug! You are the Olympic all around champion and you deserve it girl! ❤"

Gabby's teammates McKayla and Kyla have been preparing for years—check it out!

What's in a Name? Born Gabrielle and better known as Gabby, Douglas is also widely known by the nickname "Flying Squirrel." Who bestowed the cutesy moniker on her? Martha Karolyi, the National Coordinator for USA Gymnastics.

As for why, it all has to do with Gabby's performance on the uneven bars, which previously earned her a gold medal at the 2012 Pacific Rim Championships. One of her signature moves? A cool flip called a tkatchev.

She Was Born this Way: Well, almost. Douglas, who was born on Dec. 31, 1995, learned to do a perfectly straight cartwheel when she was only 3 years old. And from there, she was off: Learning to do one handed cartwheels by the time she was 4 and enrolling in gymnastics classes with her sister by 6. The Virginia Beach native took home her first title after only two years of formal training, earning top scores for her level at the 2004 Virginia State Championships. 

Six Degrees of Gymnastic Connections: While she might be rubbing elbows with the rest of London's Olympic elite now, Douglas had some brushes with formidable gymnasts in the past. First, Gabby moved from Virginia to Iowa when she was 14 to train with Liang Chow…who also just so happened to train gold-medal-winning gymnast—and future Dancing With the Stars contender—Shawn Johnson.

At the age of 15, Douglas made her national debut at the 2010 Nastia Liukin SuperGirl Cup. Though she placed fourth all-around at the time, some of Nastia's skills from her 2008 Olympic win must have rubbed off on Gabby!

She's Got Friends in High Places: Gabby's Twitter account may be packed with her gushing about the latest episode of The Vampire Diaries, gabbing with her gal-pals and giving it up to God, but lately she's gotten some @replies from some very important people.

Like say, Oprah, who tweeted "Go gabby go!" during the team competition and took to her feed again today to congratulate her, saying, "OMG I'm so THRILLED for Gabby. Flowing happy tears!! #TeamUSA"

Then there's also Justin Bieber, Trey Songz and Gabrielle Union (who Gabby just so happened to pick as the perfect actress to play her in a movie). And that's before we even get to the President. "Just talked to the President of the United States!!!" Gabby tweeted. "WOW such an honor and a amazing feeling!!"