Born Into a Van, Crowned Olympic Champion

Gabby Douglas began life without a settled home. According to her own account, as reported by ABC News in December 2012, her family lived in the back of a van for close to a year after she was born. Relatives then took them in. Her father later left, and her mother was left to raise four young children on her own.

Gymnastics became the centre of her childhood. She was one of very few African-American gymnasts in the sport, and she later described a hard stretch at a gym in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she said she was mistreated by a former coach and teammates. The gym denied the allegations and said management had never received reports of bullying.

At 14 she left Virginia Beach to train in Iowa with the coach Liang Chow, one of the best-known coaches in the sport. She lived with a host family for nearly two years and was homesick. A few months before the Olympics she told her mother she wanted to stop, saying she could work at a fast-food restaurant and run track instead.

She kept going. At the 2012 London Games she stood on top of the podium as Olympic all-around champion, the first African-American woman to win that title. In her book, Grace, Gold and Glory, she wrote about perseverance and about not letting the hurt affect her work in the gym. Her coach said her determination had been an essential part of her success.