The marketing of America’s newest gymnastics sweetheart has begun.
Gabby Douglas, who won the Olympic women’s all-around Thursday, is already on a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. USA Gymnastics sent a tweet with a photo of Douglas holding the box. Kellogg’s is a sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Things are moving fast for the 16-year-old who, fittingly, trains in Des Moines, Iowa, the heart of corn country. Also Friday, she appeared on NBC’s Today show, first by herself and then with the three other American women to win the coveted Olympic all-around title: Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin.
“You are going to have ‘Olympic champion’ with your name forever,” Patterson told her. “Take the time to soak it all in.”
While on the show, Douglas reminisced about the road she took to the gold medal, moving at 14 from her Virginia Beach, Va., home to Iowa for coaching.
“It took a lot of hard days in the gym, a lot of drive,” she said. “Gold medals are made out of sweat, blood and tears and effort in the gym every day.”
After her final routine, the floor exercise, she was not sure she had done enough for the gold medal. And then she had to wait for the final competitor, Victoria Komova of Russia.
“I was like okay … do I have the gold? Do I have the silver? What do I have? My heart was pounding,” Douglas said.
Aly Raisman, the other American in the all-around competition, was uncertain about her standing as well. She ended up in a tie for third with Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, but a new tie-breaking procedure, which Raisman said she wasn’t aware of, dropped her to fourth. The judges went to a scorecard tie-breaker, taking the total of each gymnast’s three highest scores from the four events.
“I was hoping they would give us both the bronze medal,” Raisman said on Today. “I wish I could have been up on the podium with (Gabby), but, like I said, I’m just trying to be positive.
“I definitely feel OK. I’m still really happy with my performance. I don’t need a medal to prove I did well.”
