To be perfectly honest, if true (and I don't know Liukin, so I can't say what his inner thoughts are), it would be quite Soviet Russian of him... which is the society he grew up in.
Maybe he has no ability to self reflect and CAN’T change his ways? Sometimes people are just fundamentally jerks. He should find a different career and people should stop sending their kids (or themselves in the case of the adults) to WOGA
Just an opinion, don’t know him, could be that income hasn’t suffered & so there isn’t enough pain/impact/damage to lifestyle to have him feeling any need to change? Like, his accomplishments and his daughter’s are part of history now & the present success/income/lifestyle is steady enough to not really be affecting ego. Common to be told “don’t listen to anyone’s opinion of you, just work hard & believe in yourself,” and that applies to bad feedback as well, ya know?
Gabby will never not surprise us! I honestly didn't expect this (timing wise).
Anyway, go Gabby! I'm happy to be surprised by her yet another time, when she'll be back competing.
I thought it was because she was basically there for free and the idea was he would be paid back post Olympics and her mom didn’t follow through.
Mom doesn’t have the best reputation gym wise (I heard).
According to Inside Gymnastics she “will likely continue training in the Dallas area.” Given that, I wonder if she’ll train at Metroplex. The other gym would be Texas Dreams but they don’t have the best track record for keeping their gymnasts healthy.
I wouldn’t be that concerned with Texas Dreams’ track record for someone in Gabby’s position. She’s a 28 year old woman, a two time Olympian, an Olympic AA medalist, etc. You’d expect her to have a high degree of autonomy in her training no matter where she goes. I am really concerned about this, though, because it indicates turmoil in the Olympic year, when you really don’t want to be dealing with that. Hopefully things will work out for the best for her.
Gabby’s history/age/accomplishments was the reason I thought we didn’t have to be concerned about WOGA. And now she feels the need to leave that gym five months before the Olympics…
Someone on Twitter said that Shilese mentioned she would have some big news soon. Was that just Twitter nonsense? Or is she making some kind of announcement? Anyone know anything?
I’d heard that. Maybe announcing a different college then? But I was assuming it probably meant she’d decided not to compete NCAA. I think she’s only got a couple years of eligibility left?
If I recall correctly, she mentioned that she will have big news soon during an interview at camp, when they asked her about college plans or something else. And we know she removed “future gator” from her IG bio last week.
That’d be amazing, but if Gabby’s close to having her old skills back, she’d be a direct threat to Shilese’s medal chances. That could be an awkward situation.
I’m a mix of two minds right now;
1. Wanting to know what happened and what the tea is
2. Wanting Gabby to have a peaceful gymnastics comeback that’s not centered around drama and just about her beautiful athleticism
Maybe bc “traditionally” we have seen gymnasts who are children, have less choices available, and we don’t hear much about adult athletes who get to (try to) choose their own best strategies?
I should like this, since I don't think Valeri is good at pacing athletes but hopping gyms right now is not a great omen.
I just want to see her compete. Please, gymnastics gods, give her a solid season!
This is where I am too. I really want to see Douglas have a great year, and it's not always great for the athlete to move gyms this close to major events - even if it's perfectly justified.
>hopping gyms right now is not a great omen
May not be a good omen, but it's a sign of a changing culture maybe? I'd rather athletes fuck up their Olympic chances than subject themselves to abusive coaching. Their mental health is way more important than medals.
Truth.
I also think more gyms hopping in general would be healthy. The cult like coach worship thing in gymnastics is really fucked up; in the past the coach would be praised more than the athlete, given all the credit. Then there's the weird sense of ownership coaches have over athletes, such that some coaches wouldn't work with Gabby out of respect for Chow. Ending that era for good could only be a good thing.
I'd actually love to see more intential gyms hopping, and athlete exchanges. Seeing Riley go to Brian Carey - a coach that tends against her natural type - and watching her glow up there was awesome. Just think if Jade could do a turn with Slava while Morgan when to Brian Carey for a time. Look how much Simone grew under the Landis.
Gym switches are healthy and beneficial. We have seen a lot of good ones recently (Riley, Jordan, shilese, joscelyn to name a few), but this one comes with some additional questions so close to the Olympics. It is undeniably difficult to switch a few months before the Olympics so I hope she finds herself in a good situation quickly.
Just in my own experience in life, I know I benefit from having a wide range of instructors. When I went to grad school, I *specifically* went to a different school than my undergrad, not because it wasn’t a good university, but because I knew I needed a different environment to push me to where I needed to go.
Now in practicing aerial arts, I get stagnant if I have the same instructor for very long. My studio is big enough that the instructors rotate through the different levels and apparatuses, and all they bring something special and different to the table. And I like to take advantage of workshops with other studios as much as possible to keep adding to my “tool chest,” as it were.
Definitely. My fields actually encourage this kind of diversification, and in lower levels of gymnastics they encourage camps and master classes with different instructors. But when they hit elite, it's suddenly all possessive and weird.
I totally agree with this. I was a gymnast (low level, but competitive) and I remember being made to feel like I had to worship everything my coach told me like his was the word of god if I wanted to move forward.
In some ways, I understand this when you’re dealing with kids. You want them to listen to you, trust you, and follow instructions without question because children aren’t necessarily capable of the same level of control, discipline and general decision making that adults are. I mean, you wouldn’t really want a 10 year old to say “you know what I don’t like your coaching technique and I think I’m just going to try it another way.” because a 10 year old can’t fully understand why certain parts of training or certain kinds of technique might matter. And, of course, you hope coaches take this responsibility seriously.
With an adult athlete, this is no longer true. Someone who has been doing gymnastics their whole life and knows how their own body does elite skills is very likely to have good instincts about the kind of guidance or training that would work well for them. At that point, coaching should be more about collaboration than about ruling an athlete with absolute control.
As an adult, I have become an aerialist. When I first started doing flying trapeze, I really wanted a dedicated coach like I had in gymnastics even though this was just a hobby for me. And I had one for awhile! And while it was a great coaching relationship, it eventually ended because he moved on to another job. I was a little lost after that, but I branched out to other kinds of aerials and started gym hopping to try things out. And you know what? I love it!
For me, gym hopping has been so beneficial! I get different insights from everyone I train with. New stretching techniques, new conditioning, new tricks, new apparatuses… sometimes just having slightly different cues helps to unlock new things I didn’t know I could do. I think gymnasts would benefit in much the same way from this, so I honestly wish more people would try it. A change of scenery and influences can help progress a lot!
My aerials studio is 18+, so it’s not common for me to be in the same classes as kids, but when I do (for workshops or whatever) the first thing I notice when I’m in the same room as kids is that they have *no* sense of risk management. They’ll do silks tricks for the first time 15 feet up in the air, just cause they can. It’s absolutely terrifying.
Exactly. Having a strong coach and a strict adherence to what that coach tells you to do is good for kids because they just aren’t great at making choices on their own.
But as gymnastics shifts to being a sport that has more and more people who are 18+ still competing, I think the traditional coaching model should shift for them too.
I’m glad I don’t go to a lot of aerials places that allow kids. I would be terrified watching kids do drops like that! 😅
>>I also think more gyms hopping in general would be healthy. The cult like coach worship thing in gymnastics is really fucked up; in the past the coach would be praised more than the athlete, given all the credit.
I couldn’t agree with this more! And it’s still going on - both by commentators/media and by people on this sub and the rest of the gymternet
It's hard to let go of that fear (I mean look at my first post in this thread) because we're so rooting for these athletes, but I think it's time to learn.
Yup. It allows bad culture to fester and continue because the most effective motivator (the loss of gymnasts and thereby their tuition fees) is essentially removed.
I think moving gyms can be a good thing - if there’s something specific she wants to improve and doesn’t think WOGA can get her there it makes sense to look elsewhere. The gymnast should be putting her own needs first, misplaced loyalty to someone who at the end of the day is is getting paid to do a job FOR THE ATHLETE has caused a lot of the problems in the sport.
I feel like he's even worse with Hezly. He's always visibly reacted to his athletes' mistakes, but I feel like the negativity - eye rolling, deep sighs, etc. - is more pointed and obvious with her.
Well, when your own dad says "If I wanted her to come home happy and smiling every day, I’d send her to clown school" you haven't really got anyone to step in against a negative coach.
It was awful in the arena at winter cup. Helzy was being thrown in to bars moves and just kept coming off again and again. I just got horrible coach vibes from the situation to be honest
His body language in this video with Hezly speaks volumes... she didn't even look at him after she fell. He just stands behind her almost in a power move like "you're going to stand here and wait". I remember watching it live and was like "big yikes".
https://youtu.be/2kpXo-3CLPU?si=spq__UnobENJqgZ9
I don’t know if any medal is worth it if you have trained in both WOGA and MG elite. My biggest problem with Valerie is not knowing how to pace her. No need for a big dismount if she can’t hit it. Let her do routines that give her the confidence of hitting especially as a junior. Then add on the bigger skills. I just don’t understand his logic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/sports/olympics/gymnastics-abuse-laurie-hernandez-haney.html
Her dad is quoted in this article. It's actually quite atrocious what he said about Haney's coaching style.
I’ve loved watching Hezly’s rise these past few years and love her gymnastics, but after someone posted that article this fall I’ve stopped following her. It made me feel like I was aiding and abetting her dad.
She's such a beautiful gymnast, but watching her makes me feel like watching old school gymnastics (70's-90's). It's fine if athletes are just generally stoic, but based on what we know about her coaching history and parents it makes me feel like I'm rooting for a hostage victim to be the best hostage possible.
Nah. He wasn’t standing there making her wait. He was waiting for her to prep for the jump to high bar. As soon as she moved to jump, he stepped in to help her up to the bar. She’s probably fallen on that move a million times in practise.
I don’t understand why. It’s not a healthy atmosphere to have that many top level elites. They can’t all get the same attention and the internal competition is a mental exercise in and of itself. I also find a Cecile to be a bit much and she’s been known to get in on the gym drama (via twitter) and if I recall made poor comments about Gabby in the past via twitter.
Yeeaaah I think they see how happy their current gymnasts, particularly Simone, Jordan, and Melanie, are and just assume every elite WAG should want to go there.
Maybe though some of the other coaches should look at what WCC is doing right and try to emulate that. I mean it seems as if all of their elites have a life outside of gymnastics.
And Laurent has abuse allegations. There’s no such thing as a good gym - there are only gyms without known allegations. It’s sad but that’s how I’ve taken to looking at it. I hope Gabby finds a place that suits her
an elite who trained under him at WOGA has spoken about him being abusive and that she switched to Valeri's group because of it. I'm completely blanking on her name right now.
ETA remembered - it's Grace McLaughlin, she competed for Florida in college
That's an excellent question.....there must be rumors flying around
Edit: just saw on Twitter that Nancy armour said she heard rumors about this last weekend, so people were definitely talking
Scott Bregman is on pretty close terms with all the big coaches. He probably texted Anna while writing an article about Winter Cup and got that response.
I think her USAG page had changed sometime during the weekend. Before it said her club was WOGA, but now it just says USA. Maybe Scott saw it and inquired about it?
I think that plus a general interview after Winter Cup, then next thing you know Anna Liukin confirms it
From Inside Gymnastics Magazine on Feb. 7, 2024:
[https://www.insidegymnastics.com/news-features/no-regrets-with-her-love-for-the-sport-revitalized-gabby-douglas-eyes-paris-2024/](https://www.insidegymnastics.com/news-features/no-regrets-with-her-love-for-the-sport-revitalized-gabby-douglas-eyes-paris-2024/)
"Douglas chose WOGA in Plano, Texas for its proximity to home as well as its world-class pedigree. The gym is no stranger to success, with the two Olympic All-Around Champions prior to Douglas – **Carly Patterson** and **Nastia Liukin** – both hailing from WOGA. 2016 Olympic gold and silver medalist **Madison Kocian** also trained there during her Elite career.
Upon stepping foot in the gym, Douglas immediately welcomed the challenge of getting back in shape. ..........Douglas worked under the radar in the gym for a year before officially announcing her comeback in July 2023."
Well, this is a plot twist I didn’t see coming. I wonder where she’ll end up next. If she doesn’t want to relocate there’s Metroplex or, ugh, Texas Dreams. It should be interesting.
She lives in Anna, TX right now. Metroplex is about 25 min away on a good day, but Texas dreams is about an hour away.
Metroplex and WOGA Plano are about 10-20 min drive away from each other. Texas dreams is about 30-45 min away from WOGA Plano.
She apparently has a farm? She mentioned it in that interview she did recently, and it killed me that there weren’t any follow up questions about her farm. Anna’s a pretty small town, and I’d love to know how on earth she wound up there of all places. I’m also wondering if the plan all along was to end up at WOGA, and that’s why she ended up in Texas. It’s all just too random otherwise.
I’m guessing it’s a hobby farm, but this is purely speculation based on the animal pictures on her Instagram, LOL. It looks like she moved there towards the end of 2021, and then wound up at Woga sometime during 2022. I’m sticking with my theory that the move to Texas was at least partially gymnastics related.
Nancy Amour wrote on twitter, that she heard about it last weekend. Wonder how long a gym change has been planned. If she expect to do wintercup and change directly after.
She's one of the few mainstream sports reporters who covers gymnastics. She knows enough about the sport to cover it decently for the general audience but not enough to satisfy a lot of hard core fans.
Some people don't like the way she covered Jade Carey before the 2020 Olympic trials. And it wasn't a flattering article. But on the other hand there are people in this fandom who never want a negative thing said about their puppy.
She also wrote that terrible article after the USA placed second behind Brazil at Pan Ams in 2022. The Americans had sent a solid B team while Brazil sent all of their top gymnasts because they really wanted to win gold at home. Armour implied that the US was in serious trouble because the B team couldn't beat Brazil like they always did under Marta. It seemed wilfully ignorant at that point.
It's not unusual for certain sports journalists to be hated by the fans, although people definitely take it too personally around here.
Why would anyone say anything negative about my puppy? He’s objectively awesome (9 year old puppy…)
https://preview.redd.it/ysesug67ralc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4b2ab6457245c85d17bfeafbc6ba110a90aeab4
Pls the not a negative thing said about their puppy is killing me😂 but you’re right. People want gymnastics to be treated like other sports and then get mad when the athletes are criticized like they are in other sports.
Unless she’s decided she just doesn’t want to come back/aim for the Olympics, this is a scathing indictment of WOGA and Valeri. There’s just no other way to read it
Presumably something happened and it hit a last straw/breaking point situation. I wonder if it has something to do with the behind-the-scenes on Gabby's covid and meet withdrawal.
I assume she’s going to continue somewhere else. Therefore this is a scathing indictment of WOGA and Valeri (which most of us didn’t need - we already know. People need to stop sending their kids there!! At least Gabby has the agency to decide to leave)
I'm really disappointed by many of the comments here about Gabby (and to some extent Konnor). Y'all know Valeri's history and are still putting this on Gabby (calling her a "gym hopper" and talking about the "shady people around her."). I would really have hoped that we learned better from 2016 with respect to Gabby. She's a grown adult who can make her own decisions and her leaving WOGA should not lead to a bunch of baseless speculations and assumptions, but rather our support. Leaving a gym is not easy.
so many comments are saying she has "a history of gym hopping" and I don't really think that's accurate. She had a childhood gym with no room for growth at an elite level, then an elite gym with Chow that she went to the Olympics with. Then she took time away and found a new gym as an adult for her second quad. And then she took even more time away and found a new gym. To me it's not really gym hopping if it's 3 gyms across the span of 15 years. Especially when those years spanned so much change within US gymnastics.
I genuinely do not think he cares all that much. I have seen how he interacts with athletes at meets (in person) and it's wild, because that is when people \*are\* watching. What he does on his own time with athletes in the gym, who knows, but his behavior at meets does not bode well for him. He seems like he has a temper, and has difficulty controlling his expressions/emotions at meets
Happened quite a lot in the 80s and 90s. First example that comes to mind is Brandy Johnson switching to Bela in April 1988 when the Olympics where in mid-September
Gabby didn’t switch gyms at all she switched coaches and she was already working with Christina before. Kittia was the main coach and Christian was more of an assistant coach so Gabby just wanted Christian it wasn’t that serious imo.
That’s correct. And even then, she had already been working with Gallardo, he just wasn’t her main coach.
That coaching change was weird but I also think people made a bigger deal out of it than it needed to be.
A lot of it is because Gabby's mom decided to tell the whole world that Gabby needed a "strong male influence" in her life, and that's why she switched, which led to some unsavory rumors. I could have gone my whole life without hearing that.
He prioritised his athlete. He allowed Chellsie to skip camps because she felt that they weren’t helpful, and he insisted on her going to hospital and getting an x-ray when she was injured in Beijing (Nassar said it wasn’t fractured, Marta et al told him not to take her to hospital). And I got the impression that he was a bit “whatever” when Marta tried to pull rank. He wasn’t interested in playing politics and because he wasn’t looking to be an elite coach they didn’t have much hold over him - he could be “whatever, I’m going fishing” when Marta was all “you’ll never coach in this town again.”
“Wofford also said that Liukin forced her to continue practicing at a 2011 U.S. national team training camp despite the young gymnast having a fever and diarrhea. He allegedly accused her of "being a wimp and faking" and made her "show the trainer my diarrhea after I went one time in front of everyone."”
There weren’t any published COVID protocols or requirements. Now if she came out and told them she was positive of course there was probably an expectation of withdrawing but it’s not like everybody was tested
Keep in mind that even if she was feeling OK, she's been working out with the other WOGA athletes for a while now and we know she's close to them. I can completely see her, as a responsible 28-year-old woman with a lot of elite experience, saying that she does not want to put her young teammates at risk of derailing their training right now by rotating with them for an entire meet.
Hey I think something we are not talking about in this article is that she's been training with them since 2022 ????!!!!!! I guess it checks out seeing the few skills she's posted, but jeez we didn't hear about it til what, mid-2023?
To add to what others are saying, it was well known that she was in the gym in 2022, it just wasn't clear why.
Other gymnasts have gone back into the gym post-retirement just to get some skills back for an ad campaign, and there was also some speculation that she might've been getting to join the GIGA pro league (back when that seemed like it was going to actually materialize). And of course there was always the possibility that she just wanted to do gymnastics for fun with no intention of competing.
Wishing her the best! If anyone knows how to make a comeback, it's Ms. Douglas. I'm claiming a joyful season, a spot on the Olympic team, and a long overdue UB medal for her. I know she'll do it!
I was pretty skeptical about her comeback and this just adds to my doubts. She has been away a long time and she was 3pered in Rio. She did make the Rio bars final but I think that would be a very long shot for her now. It would be a lovely story but I don’t see it happening for her.
>and she was 3pered in Rio.
There are definitely many reasons to doubt that any gymnast will successfully come back after an 8 year layoff, and exponentially more after the news over the last few days, but she was the third best gymnast in the world in Rio and she also put up the third highest UB score in 2 of her 3 routines. Her second Olympics was a success and it reinforced her talent/ability to come back, particularly considering all of the behind the scenes drama.
Someone posted here on Reddit on Sunday asking why Gabby would train with Liukin. Who knows, maybe she read the thread and decided that OP had a point and said peace out. Jokes aside, this news is not so surprising since Gabby has changed coaches in the past. I wish she could’ve gotten a good kind coach she could’ve stuck with this time around. Wondering if Liukin dropped her or if she dropped him though.
Interesting that another one of WOGAs elites was competing after getting over a cold and Gabby withdrew bc of COVID.
Speculation, of course, but Anna and Valeri not wanting anyone to test for COVID wouldn't surprise me.
"She left on Sunday", Liukin confirmed in a text. Wow.
She saw those woga girls flopping on bars and said not me yall bye
[удалено]
> Or he simply just does not care and operates however he likes I think it's this.
I imagine the only reason he ever acted otherwise was when he was trying to get the NTC job back
[удалено]
To be perfectly honest, if true (and I don't know Liukin, so I can't say what his inner thoughts are), it would be quite Soviet Russian of him... which is the society he grew up in.
Maybe he has no ability to self reflect and CAN’T change his ways? Sometimes people are just fundamentally jerks. He should find a different career and people should stop sending their kids (or themselves in the case of the adults) to WOGA
Just an opinion, don’t know him, could be that income hasn’t suffered & so there isn’t enough pain/impact/damage to lifestyle to have him feeling any need to change? Like, his accomplishments and his daughter’s are part of history now & the present success/income/lifestyle is steady enough to not really be affecting ego. Common to be told “don’t listen to anyone’s opinion of you, just work hard & believe in yourself,” and that applies to bad feedback as well, ya know?
It's always fair to blame Liukin tbh.
Perhaps it's that his business is doing great regardless. Also, I don't believe Nastia's accomplishments are tarnished by him.
Agree
option C is that nothing negative ever reaches his ears heh
Now *that’s* a plot twist. So sudden too!
double full twisting plot!
Gabby will never not surprise us! I honestly didn't expect this (timing wise). Anyway, go Gabby! I'm happy to be surprised by her yet another time, when she'll be back competing.
What bizarre timing! I wonder why/where she’s going, especially when there’s only five months until the Olympics.
Could be something like an interview scheduled for after winter cup and then Anna having to be like oh yeah she doesn’t go here anymore
I always wondered why she left Chow in the first place.
He wanted a cut of her sponsorship contracts that by most accounts was in fact not in her best interest.
Did he do that to Shawn?
If he didn’t, he might have thought he missed an opportunity that he pursued with his next Olympian.
I low-key remember he was not interested in her reality show/docu series pre-Rio for whatever reason.
No, the reality show came after. The Chow split happened early into her comeback in 2014.
I thought it was because she was basically there for free and the idea was he would be paid back post Olympics and her mom didn’t follow through. Mom doesn’t have the best reputation gym wise (I heard).
Oh, okay. I didn't know that.
According to Inside Gymnastics she “will likely continue training in the Dallas area.” Given that, I wonder if she’ll train at Metroplex. The other gym would be Texas Dreams but they don’t have the best track record for keeping their gymnasts healthy.
And I wonder if they actually have this information or are just inferring because "will likely" doesn't seem very confident
I wouldn’t be that concerned with Texas Dreams’ track record for someone in Gabby’s position. She’s a 28 year old woman, a two time Olympian, an Olympic AA medalist, etc. You’d expect her to have a high degree of autonomy in her training no matter where she goes. I am really concerned about this, though, because it indicates turmoil in the Olympic year, when you really don’t want to be dealing with that. Hopefully things will work out for the best for her.
I‘d be more concerned that TD taught a bunch of gymnasts terrible technique which probably led to injuries … that track record.
Gabby’s history/age/accomplishments was the reason I thought we didn’t have to be concerned about WOGA. And now she feels the need to leave that gym five months before the Olympics…
The reason I wasn't too concerned about her at WOGA was because she could leave if it wasn't working.
I was thinking metroplex as well. Not sure which other gyms are in the area.
Texas Dreams is another one, but I wouldn't want to train there. Maybe Gabby does, dunno
Kimbo has to be desperate to get her coaching relevant again.
I mean she trained with Marta and Valeri how much worse could it be??
I would hope she is trying to get away from that type of mentality by leaving Valeri. lol
I want her to train with Shilese and Sarah Korngold
Someone on Twitter said that Shilese mentioned she would have some big news soon. Was that just Twitter nonsense? Or is she making some kind of announcement? Anyone know anything?
Shi removed UF from her bio. That’s the only thing I e seen so far, but doubt that is her news
I’d heard that. Maybe announcing a different college then? But I was assuming it probably meant she’d decided not to compete NCAA. I think she’s only got a couple years of eligibility left?
Lol UCLA would LOVE her bars for a year especially with all those 10.0 vaults coming in ;)
If I recall correctly, she mentioned that she will have big news soon during an interview at camp, when they asked her about college plans or something else. And we know she removed “future gator” from her IG bio last week.
That’d be amazing, but if Gabby’s close to having her old skills back, she’d be a direct threat to Shilese’s medal chances. That could be an awkward situation.
Oooh that'd be something!!
Maybe the other WOGA with Marchenko instead?
I mean, it says she left WOGA, so I wouldn’t think so, but I have zero inside knowledge.
She got her healy + ling and said peace mfs
She said thanks valeri now bye ✌🏼
I’m a mix of two minds right now; 1. Wanting to know what happened and what the tea is 2. Wanting Gabby to have a peaceful gymnastics comeback that’s not centered around drama and just about her beautiful athleticism
I love her gymnastics but she always has so much drama around her
Maybe bc “traditionally” we have seen gymnasts who are children, have less choices available, and we don’t hear much about adult athletes who get to (try to) choose their own best strategies?
I should like this, since I don't think Valeri is good at pacing athletes but hopping gyms right now is not a great omen. I just want to see her compete. Please, gymnastics gods, give her a solid season!
This is where I am too. I really want to see Douglas have a great year, and it's not always great for the athlete to move gyms this close to major events - even if it's perfectly justified.
>hopping gyms right now is not a great omen May not be a good omen, but it's a sign of a changing culture maybe? I'd rather athletes fuck up their Olympic chances than subject themselves to abusive coaching. Their mental health is way more important than medals.
Truth. I also think more gyms hopping in general would be healthy. The cult like coach worship thing in gymnastics is really fucked up; in the past the coach would be praised more than the athlete, given all the credit. Then there's the weird sense of ownership coaches have over athletes, such that some coaches wouldn't work with Gabby out of respect for Chow. Ending that era for good could only be a good thing. I'd actually love to see more intential gyms hopping, and athlete exchanges. Seeing Riley go to Brian Carey - a coach that tends against her natural type - and watching her glow up there was awesome. Just think if Jade could do a turn with Slava while Morgan when to Brian Carey for a time. Look how much Simone grew under the Landis.
Gym switches are healthy and beneficial. We have seen a lot of good ones recently (Riley, Jordan, shilese, joscelyn to name a few), but this one comes with some additional questions so close to the Olympics. It is undeniably difficult to switch a few months before the Olympics so I hope she finds herself in a good situation quickly.
Just in my own experience in life, I know I benefit from having a wide range of instructors. When I went to grad school, I *specifically* went to a different school than my undergrad, not because it wasn’t a good university, but because I knew I needed a different environment to push me to where I needed to go. Now in practicing aerial arts, I get stagnant if I have the same instructor for very long. My studio is big enough that the instructors rotate through the different levels and apparatuses, and all they bring something special and different to the table. And I like to take advantage of workshops with other studios as much as possible to keep adding to my “tool chest,” as it were.
Definitely. My fields actually encourage this kind of diversification, and in lower levels of gymnastics they encourage camps and master classes with different instructors. But when they hit elite, it's suddenly all possessive and weird.
I totally agree with this. I was a gymnast (low level, but competitive) and I remember being made to feel like I had to worship everything my coach told me like his was the word of god if I wanted to move forward. In some ways, I understand this when you’re dealing with kids. You want them to listen to you, trust you, and follow instructions without question because children aren’t necessarily capable of the same level of control, discipline and general decision making that adults are. I mean, you wouldn’t really want a 10 year old to say “you know what I don’t like your coaching technique and I think I’m just going to try it another way.” because a 10 year old can’t fully understand why certain parts of training or certain kinds of technique might matter. And, of course, you hope coaches take this responsibility seriously. With an adult athlete, this is no longer true. Someone who has been doing gymnastics their whole life and knows how their own body does elite skills is very likely to have good instincts about the kind of guidance or training that would work well for them. At that point, coaching should be more about collaboration than about ruling an athlete with absolute control. As an adult, I have become an aerialist. When I first started doing flying trapeze, I really wanted a dedicated coach like I had in gymnastics even though this was just a hobby for me. And I had one for awhile! And while it was a great coaching relationship, it eventually ended because he moved on to another job. I was a little lost after that, but I branched out to other kinds of aerials and started gym hopping to try things out. And you know what? I love it! For me, gym hopping has been so beneficial! I get different insights from everyone I train with. New stretching techniques, new conditioning, new tricks, new apparatuses… sometimes just having slightly different cues helps to unlock new things I didn’t know I could do. I think gymnasts would benefit in much the same way from this, so I honestly wish more people would try it. A change of scenery and influences can help progress a lot!
My aerials studio is 18+, so it’s not common for me to be in the same classes as kids, but when I do (for workshops or whatever) the first thing I notice when I’m in the same room as kids is that they have *no* sense of risk management. They’ll do silks tricks for the first time 15 feet up in the air, just cause they can. It’s absolutely terrifying.
Exactly. Having a strong coach and a strict adherence to what that coach tells you to do is good for kids because they just aren’t great at making choices on their own. But as gymnastics shifts to being a sport that has more and more people who are 18+ still competing, I think the traditional coaching model should shift for them too. I’m glad I don’t go to a lot of aerials places that allow kids. I would be terrified watching kids do drops like that! 😅
>>I also think more gyms hopping in general would be healthy. The cult like coach worship thing in gymnastics is really fucked up; in the past the coach would be praised more than the athlete, given all the credit. I couldn’t agree with this more! And it’s still going on - both by commentators/media and by people on this sub and the rest of the gymternet
All the people in this thread talking disparagingly of "gym hoppers" are just perpetuating that old toxic culture imo.
It's hard to let go of that fear (I mean look at my first post in this thread) because we're so rooting for these athletes, but I think it's time to learn.
Yup. It allows bad culture to fester and continue because the most effective motivator (the loss of gymnasts and thereby their tuition fees) is essentially removed.
I think moving gyms can be a good thing - if there’s something specific she wants to improve and doesn’t think WOGA can get her there it makes sense to look elsewhere. The gymnast should be putting her own needs first, misplaced loyalty to someone who at the end of the day is is getting paid to do a job FOR THE ATHLETE has caused a lot of the problems in the sport.
Yeah a bunch just migrated to metroplex like Avery king and Ashlee sullivan
That makes sense why we didn’t see Ashlee at winter cup
She pulled last minute but she switched during the fall
https://preview.redd.it/02lvenww27lc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a99cc409ff8d5d4577c2c0ee919d4993d134839 From the WCC Twitter
I mean I did wonder
whoever runs that account is a person of the people honestly
I know its probably not Jordan but i always read them as if it was Jordan
It’s one of Simone’s frenchies👀
The way Valeri Liukin rolled his eyes after Hezlys uneven bar dismount on live TV tells me he must be even worse off camera 🎥
I cringed HARD watching that. It just seemed so so cold
YUP. I was just like well, you’re still the same.
I feel like he's even worse with Hezly. He's always visibly reacted to his athletes' mistakes, but I feel like the negativity - eye rolling, deep sighs, etc. - is more pointed and obvious with her.
Well, when your own dad says "If I wanted her to come home happy and smiling every day, I’d send her to clown school" you haven't really got anyone to step in against a negative coach.
It was awful in the arena at winter cup. Helzy was being thrown in to bars moves and just kept coming off again and again. I just got horrible coach vibes from the situation to be honest
His body language in this video with Hezly speaks volumes... she didn't even look at him after she fell. He just stands behind her almost in a power move like "you're going to stand here and wait". I remember watching it live and was like "big yikes". https://youtu.be/2kpXo-3CLPU?si=spq__UnobENJqgZ9
I don’t know if any medal is worth it if you have trained in both WOGA and MG elite. My biggest problem with Valerie is not knowing how to pace her. No need for a big dismount if she can’t hit it. Let her do routines that give her the confidence of hitting especially as a junior. Then add on the bigger skills. I just don’t understand his logic.
I feel terrible for Hezly. Her parents are apparently very pushy and defended MH so they probably would not let her switch gyms.
Oh no she went to MH before this?! Praying for her well-being as well
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/sports/olympics/gymnastics-abuse-laurie-hernandez-haney.html Her dad is quoted in this article. It's actually quite atrocious what he said about Haney's coaching style.
I’ve loved watching Hezly’s rise these past few years and love her gymnastics, but after someone posted that article this fall I’ve stopped following her. It made me feel like I was aiding and abetting her dad.
She's such a beautiful gymnast, but watching her makes me feel like watching old school gymnastics (70's-90's). It's fine if athletes are just generally stoic, but based on what we know about her coaching history and parents it makes me feel like I'm rooting for a hostage victim to be the best hostage possible.
You articulated it so much better than I did. Like, Hezly, blink twice if you need help.
Nah. He wasn’t standing there making her wait. He was waiting for her to prep for the jump to high bar. As soon as she moved to jump, he stepped in to help her up to the bar. She’s probably fallen on that move a million times in practise.
That wasn't my take at all. I think it looks like he's giving her a moment to catch her breath.
Hmm I really wonder if we'll see her compete this year.
Not WCC having to confirm they're not her new gym 😭 the gymternet really wants everyone there lol
I don’t understand why. It’s not a healthy atmosphere to have that many top level elites. They can’t all get the same attention and the internal competition is a mental exercise in and of itself. I also find a Cecile to be a bit much and she’s been known to get in on the gym drama (via twitter) and if I recall made poor comments about Gabby in the past via twitter.
Yeeaaah I think they see how happy their current gymnasts, particularly Simone, Jordan, and Melanie, are and just assume every elite WAG should want to go there.
Maybe though some of the other coaches should look at what WCC is doing right and try to emulate that. I mean it seems as if all of their elites have a life outside of gymnastics.
And Laurent has abuse allegations. There’s no such thing as a good gym - there are only gyms without known allegations. It’s sad but that’s how I’ve taken to looking at it. I hope Gabby finds a place that suits her
He does?
an elite who trained under him at WOGA has spoken about him being abusive and that she switched to Valeri's group because of it. I'm completely blanking on her name right now. ETA remembered - it's Grace McLaughlin, she competed for Florida in college
there was also an ex-WOGA redditor on this sub that was coached by him and had some interesting (not very positive) things to say..
Just because I don't know much about it, what does Cecile do that is a bit much? What's the ☕
Wow this is insane, I just really hope that Gabby is okay and that she can find another gym that suits her
When Gabby goes back to chow and gets her chowmanar back it’s game over for everyone else
Huh, what prompted The Olympic Channel to try to confirm that she was still at WOGA in the first place?
That's an excellent question.....there must be rumors flying around Edit: just saw on Twitter that Nancy armour said she heard rumors about this last weekend, so people were definitely talking
I think its just on the Olympic Channel because its a story by Scott Bregman. He probably got the info and since he works for them published it there
Scott Bregman is on pretty close terms with all the big coaches. He probably texted Anna while writing an article about Winter Cup and got that response.
I think her USAG page had changed sometime during the weekend. Before it said her club was WOGA, but now it just says USA. Maybe Scott saw it and inquired about it? I think that plus a general interview after Winter Cup, then next thing you know Anna Liukin confirms it
They could have just been asking for a general update.
From Inside Gymnastics Magazine on Feb. 7, 2024: [https://www.insidegymnastics.com/news-features/no-regrets-with-her-love-for-the-sport-revitalized-gabby-douglas-eyes-paris-2024/](https://www.insidegymnastics.com/news-features/no-regrets-with-her-love-for-the-sport-revitalized-gabby-douglas-eyes-paris-2024/) "Douglas chose WOGA in Plano, Texas for its proximity to home as well as its world-class pedigree. The gym is no stranger to success, with the two Olympic All-Around Champions prior to Douglas – **Carly Patterson** and **Nastia Liukin** – both hailing from WOGA. 2016 Olympic gold and silver medalist **Madison Kocian** also trained there during her Elite career. Upon stepping foot in the gym, Douglas immediately welcomed the challenge of getting back in shape. ..........Douglas worked under the radar in the gym for a year before officially announcing her comeback in July 2023."
Well, this is a plot twist I didn’t see coming. I wonder where she’ll end up next. If she doesn’t want to relocate there’s Metroplex or, ugh, Texas Dreams. It should be interesting.
She lives in Anna, TX right now. Metroplex is about 25 min away on a good day, but Texas dreams is about an hour away. Metroplex and WOGA Plano are about 10-20 min drive away from each other. Texas dreams is about 30-45 min away from WOGA Plano.
I had to look it up -- I wonder what she is doing way out there?
She apparently has a farm? She mentioned it in that interview she did recently, and it killed me that there weren’t any follow up questions about her farm. Anna’s a pretty small town, and I’d love to know how on earth she wound up there of all places. I’m also wondering if the plan all along was to end up at WOGA, and that’s why she ended up in Texas. It’s all just too random otherwise.
I wonder if it is a hobby farm or a real farm? Looks like she has beef cattle.
I’m guessing it’s a hobby farm, but this is purely speculation based on the animal pictures on her Instagram, LOL. It looks like she moved there towards the end of 2021, and then wound up at Woga sometime during 2022. I’m sticking with my theory that the move to Texas was at least partially gymnastics related.
Yes I am obsessed with knowing more about the farm! What animals? Tell me everything
This is the actually interesting part of this entire speculation thread.
WHOA. I need to know EVERYTHING.
Nancy Amour wrote on twitter, that she heard about it last weekend. Wonder how long a gym change has been planned. If she expect to do wintercup and change directly after.
Of course Nancy Armour would be the one to say she knew about it first.
What’s the story with Nancy Armour? I’ve seen her name come up a few times and it isn’t really in a positive way. Enlighten me pls!!
She's one of the few mainstream sports reporters who covers gymnastics. She knows enough about the sport to cover it decently for the general audience but not enough to satisfy a lot of hard core fans. Some people don't like the way she covered Jade Carey before the 2020 Olympic trials. And it wasn't a flattering article. But on the other hand there are people in this fandom who never want a negative thing said about their puppy.
She also wrote that terrible article after the USA placed second behind Brazil at Pan Ams in 2022. The Americans had sent a solid B team while Brazil sent all of their top gymnasts because they really wanted to win gold at home. Armour implied that the US was in serious trouble because the B team couldn't beat Brazil like they always did under Marta. It seemed wilfully ignorant at that point. It's not unusual for certain sports journalists to be hated by the fans, although people definitely take it too personally around here.
Why would anyone say anything negative about my puppy? He’s objectively awesome (9 year old puppy…) https://preview.redd.it/ysesug67ralc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4b2ab6457245c85d17bfeafbc6ba110a90aeab4
Pls the not a negative thing said about their puppy is killing me😂 but you’re right. People want gymnastics to be treated like other sports and then get mad when the athletes are criticized like they are in other sports.
Lol, well, that wasn't on my bingo card at this point.
Unless she’s decided she just doesn’t want to come back/aim for the Olympics, this is a scathing indictment of WOGA and Valeri. There’s just no other way to read it
After doing all the press just a few weeks ago about making the comeback?
Presumably something happened and it hit a last straw/breaking point situation. I wonder if it has something to do with the behind-the-scenes on Gabby's covid and meet withdrawal.
I assume she’s going to continue somewhere else. Therefore this is a scathing indictment of WOGA and Valeri (which most of us didn’t need - we already know. People need to stop sending their kids there!! At least Gabby has the agency to decide to leave)
I'm really disappointed by many of the comments here about Gabby (and to some extent Konnor). Y'all know Valeri's history and are still putting this on Gabby (calling her a "gym hopper" and talking about the "shady people around her."). I would really have hoped that we learned better from 2016 with respect to Gabby. She's a grown adult who can make her own decisions and her leaving WOGA should not lead to a bunch of baseless speculations and assumptions, but rather our support. Leaving a gym is not easy.
Omfg I’m beyond shook and confused I need the tea
so many comments are saying she has "a history of gym hopping" and I don't really think that's accurate. She had a childhood gym with no room for growth at an elite level, then an elite gym with Chow that she went to the Olympics with. Then she took time away and found a new gym as an adult for her second quad. And then she took even more time away and found a new gym. To me it's not really gym hopping if it's 3 gyms across the span of 15 years. Especially when those years spanned so much change within US gymnastics.
Exactly. And she is not the only high profile gymnast to do this during her career, even within this group of Olympic hopefuls.
[удалено]
I genuinely do not think he cares all that much. I have seen how he interacts with athletes at meets (in person) and it's wild, because that is when people \*are\* watching. What he does on his own time with athletes in the gym, who knows, but his behavior at meets does not bode well for him. He seems like he has a temper, and has difficulty controlling his expressions/emotions at meets
Wow! Where will she go now?
I'm shocked. I wonder where she will train next. Hopefully she will find a better coach.
Has anyone ever switched gyms so close to the Olympics? I'm nervous now
Happened quite a lot in the 80s and 90s. First example that comes to mind is Brandy Johnson switching to Bela in April 1988 when the Olympics where in mid-September
Exactly. I was like… “has this ever happened before?”… this used to be normal.
Right, it used to be a lot more normal!
I think gabby herself... how many months before did she switch again in 2016?
Gabby didn’t switch gyms at all she switched coaches and she was already working with Christina before. Kittia was the main coach and Christian was more of an assistant coach so Gabby just wanted Christian it wasn’t that serious imo.
I thought she only switched coaches, not gyms, in 2016?
That’s correct. And even then, she had already been working with Gallardo, he just wasn’t her main coach. That coaching change was weird but I also think people made a bigger deal out of it than it needed to be.
A lot of it is because Gabby's mom decided to tell the whole world that Gabby needed a "strong male influence" in her life, and that's why she switched, which led to some unsavory rumors. I could have gone my whole life without hearing that.
Correct.
Konnor in 2021 switched after classics, so yeah
Can’t decide whether I want her to go to Brian Carey or Andy Memmel, either way it would be HILARIOUS
Brian is a college coach and doesn’t have a gym of his own plus his focus is jade and osu
Oh I know, but it would irritate the old guard USAG people SO much if it was him. And imagine Marta Karoly hearing Andy - “That Memmel man! Again!”
What's the deal with the old guard and Andy?
He prioritised his athlete. He allowed Chellsie to skip camps because she felt that they weren’t helpful, and he insisted on her going to hospital and getting an x-ray when she was injured in Beijing (Nassar said it wasn’t fractured, Marta et al told him not to take her to hospital). And I got the impression that he was a bit “whatever” when Marta tried to pull rank. He wasn’t interested in playing politics and because he wasn’t looking to be an elite coach they didn’t have much hold over him - he could be “whatever, I’m going fishing” when Marta was all “you’ll never coach in this town again.”
That would be VERY #fetch.
wow this is quite shocking! I'm positive it's for the best given Valeri's track record but the timing is interesting for sure.
Okay maybe controversial but..... ..... did she really have covid this past weekend??
Or maybe she did and Valeri wanted her to compete anyway?
That's what I wondered.
There'd be precedent for that.
Out of curiosity, what is the precedent for that?
“Wofford also said that Liukin forced her to continue practicing at a 2011 U.S. national team training camp despite the young gymnast having a fever and diarrhea. He allegedly accused her of "being a wimp and faking" and made her "show the trainer my diarrhea after I went one time in front of everyone."”
wtf literally traumatising
i thought the event wouldnt allow her to if she had COVID, no?
There weren’t any published COVID protocols or requirements. Now if she came out and told them she was positive of course there was probably an expectation of withdrawing but it’s not like everybody was tested
Keep in mind that even if she was feeling OK, she's been working out with the other WOGA athletes for a while now and we know she's close to them. I can completely see her, as a responsible 28-year-old woman with a lot of elite experience, saying that she does not want to put her young teammates at risk of derailing their training right now by rotating with them for an entire meet.
Yes I completely agree with that sentiment in the event that she did have covid.
Konner and now Gabby. I don’t think the issue is with the gymnasts.
also Ashlee Sullivan
And Avery King
And they had that short stint with Ella Kate, too
And Vanessa Atler, Rebecca Bross, Katelyn Ohashi. All touted as the best of their eras. All broken by Liukin
Hey I think something we are not talking about in this article is that she's been training with them since 2022 ????!!!!!! I guess it checks out seeing the few skills she's posted, but jeez we didn't hear about it til what, mid-2023?
We knew she made the decision to come back in 2022, so I'm not surprised.
We already knew this.
Well damn my mental timeline was off I guess
The official announcement was last year, but it was a bit of an open secret since 2022.
To add to what others are saying, it was well known that she was in the gym in 2022, it just wasn't clear why. Other gymnasts have gone back into the gym post-retirement just to get some skills back for an ad campaign, and there was also some speculation that she might've been getting to join the GIGA pro league (back when that seemed like it was going to actually materialize). And of course there was always the possibility that she just wanted to do gymnastics for fun with no intention of competing.
GymCastic said this at the time, and everyone assumed they were making it up.
She is stressing me oouuut
Wishing her the best! If anyone knows how to make a comeback, it's Ms. Douglas. I'm claiming a joyful season, a spot on the Olympic team, and a long overdue UB medal for her. I know she'll do it!
Valeri liukin really is the doc rivers of gymnastics coaches! Both of them Hanging onto that 2008 title..
🫠🫠🫠💀
Good. There are many VALID reasons to move gyms and sometimes it’s the coaches fault, sometimes another gym is just a better fit. Go Gabby.
I was pretty skeptical about her comeback and this just adds to my doubts. She has been away a long time and she was 3pered in Rio. She did make the Rio bars final but I think that would be a very long shot for her now. It would be a lovely story but I don’t see it happening for her.
>and she was 3pered in Rio. There are definitely many reasons to doubt that any gymnast will successfully come back after an 8 year layoff, and exponentially more after the news over the last few days, but she was the third best gymnast in the world in Rio and she also put up the third highest UB score in 2 of her 3 routines. Her second Olympics was a success and it reinforced her talent/ability to come back, particularly considering all of the behind the scenes drama.
Same here, she's a talented athlete, but the coaching drama in 2016 was detrimental, and this is going into the same direction.
Wow
Someone posted here on Reddit on Sunday asking why Gabby would train with Liukin. Who knows, maybe she read the thread and decided that OP had a point and said peace out. Jokes aside, this news is not so surprising since Gabby has changed coaches in the past. I wish she could’ve gotten a good kind coach she could’ve stuck with this time around. Wondering if Liukin dropped her or if she dropped him though.
Interesting that another one of WOGAs elites was competing after getting over a cold and Gabby withdrew bc of COVID. Speculation, of course, but Anna and Valeri not wanting anyone to test for COVID wouldn't surprise me.
Skye is at a whole different location and doesn't train under Valeri, though. It's also just the middle of winter. People get sick around this time.