Since winning Olympic gold, Gabby Douglas has trained in California, Iowa and now Ohio. In the weeks between the two most important meets before the Rio Olympics, she made another coaching adjustment.
Douglas’ coach on the floor at the U.S. Olympic Trials on Friday night was not Kittia Carpenter, the coach she has been most associated with in her two years in Ohio.
Rather, it was a different coach from the same gym, Christian Gallardo.
NBC Olympic gymnastics analysts Tim Daggett and Nastia Liukin explained the reasoning behind the decision during NBC’s coverage of the first night of Olympic Trials on Friday.
Daggett said Douglas wasn’t happy after the P&G Championships two weeks earlier in St. Louis, where she finished fourth in the all-around.
“What Gabby told me was that she can only have one accredited coach on the floor in Rio, and she needed somebody who could spot her,” Daggett said. “So that happens to be Christian Gallardo.”
Douglas came to the Olympic Trials as a favorite to make the five-woman Rio team and become the first Olympic all-around champion to return to the following Games since Nadia Comaneci in 1980.
The Olympic team will be named after competition finishes Sunday night.
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