Washington, Aug. 31 (ANI): Olympic gold-medal gymnast Gabby Douglas, recalling her early training days at the Excalibur Gymnastics in Virginia, said that she was hurt when a staffer asked her to get a nose job done.
Douglas recalled that she was the only African-American athlete at the gym and one staff member told her to consider reconstructive surgery, which she found 'very hurtful'.
According to the New York Daily News, the comment came years before she won two Olympic golds, but this and other racist comments about her appearance, show how hard Douglas's path to victory in London was.
Douglas' nose was too flat, the staff member said, and surgery could supposedly make it less so, the report said.
This story was, however, denied by Dena Walker, the Girls Team Director at Excalibur, who said the story was 'a joke'.
According to the report, Excalibur has trained many African-American gymnasts and Douglas did not report the incident at the time, Walker said.
This is not the first complaint Douglas has made about Excalibur. Douglas also has said that a peer at the gym once called her a 'slave'.
"I was the only African-American at that gym," Gabby said, adding: "I definitely felt isolated. Why am I deserving this? Is it because I'm black? - those thoughts were going through my mind." (ANI)
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