Apega/WENN.com

From Essence

Things haven’t always been easy for track and field star Lolo Jones.  After missing out on a medal at two consecutive Olympic games, Jones is turning over a new leaf.  She’s the newest member of the U.S. national bobsled team and has hopes that this new venture will earn her a spot on the winner’s podium at the 2014 Winter Games.  Here, Jones talks about how she’s reinventing herself and empowering others to do the same.

On learning her new sport, bobsledding:

At first I thought bobsled was just going to be something fun and refreshing for me, so I’m shocked that I really do love it a lot. I’m so passionate about track, so I never imagined that I would ever say I’m really passionate about bobsled, too. I’m shocked at how much it has helped me get stronger not only physically, but mentally as well. It’s done wonders.

On rumors that she’s just “desperate” for an Olympic medal:

They completely took my words out of context. When I heard those rumors, I was pretty frustrated because it was like here we go again with things being taken out of context. If you’re pursing an Olympic sport, who’s not trying to get a medal? I just stated the obvious and I said I was desperate but it was said in much more joking way.

You can check more of the Lolo Jones interview out over on Essence.  She discusses where track fits in her life, her spirituality and her new “Degree” campaign.

Anton Oparin / Shutterstock.com

Olympic gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas isn’t taking any time off. She has been on a hectic schedule since the Olympic Games in 2012. Besides all the interviews she published her memoirs. Now she has announced she is set to publish a second memoir—yes, part two.

Though not yet 18, she still has lots to talk about it seems, and her second memoir will hit the stores next month, according to publisher Zondervan (via Yahoo).

The 17-year-old, who was a gold medalist in both the team and individual all-around gymnastics competitions, will publish Raising the Bar, the follow-up to her 2012 best-selling memoir Grace, Gold & Glory: My Leap of Faith, on April 30. That book debuted at number four on The New York Times Young Adult Bestseller List.

This time around, she is taking readers behind-the-scenes look into her life, including color photos, personal stories, and details on the athlete’s present-day life — from walking red carpets and appearing on TV shows such as The Vampire Diaries while also juggling friends, family, and training.

Obviously, it’s not the life of the typical teen. But it will give some insight, says the publisher, into the dedication and responsibilities of an athlete of Douglas’s caliber. Douglas was recently named Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press.

Douglas began training at age six and made history last year when she became the first U.S. gymnast to take home a team and an individual gold medal in the same games. And she was first African-American to win the individual gold.

Getty

From ESSENCE

The road to success for Gabby Douglas hasn’t been easy. Thankfully, the young gymnast relied on her mother, Natalie Hawkins and three siblings, Arielle, John and Joyelle. But one person’s been noticeably absent from her life, Gabby’s father Timothy Douglas, an Air National guardsman.

According to an interview with People, the Olympic gold medalist says she didn’t see him much growing up—especially after her parents divorced in 2007. And things haven’t changed much since then. “I haven’t heard from him,” said Gabby. “He’s doing his own thing. What can you do? Everyone has hiccups in their families.”

She hopes to receive an apology from him “at some point.”

Read what else Gabrielle has to say about her family over at ESSENCE.

zimbio.com

In life, you just can’t please everyone.

Unfortunately for filmmakers Maiken Baird and Michelle Major, the displeasure comes from the people at the forefront of their new documentary. Venus and Serena Williams have pulled all support of Venus and Serena, a documentary based on their lives, allegedly because of the negative light placed on their father, Richard Williams.  The movie premiered on Tuesday at the Toronto Film Festival and the sisters were a no show.

The Williamses granted access to the filmmakers January 2011 after being “wooed” and convinced that it would be a good idea. If there’s one thing most people notice about Venus and Serena is that they’re very private and you only see and know what they want you to see and know.  Apparently, they were fine with all of the filming and the direction the documentary had taken until they saw the final version.  According to an unidentified source who spoke with the L.A. Times, Venus was particularly upset and had a very long conversation with Baird and Major about changes that needed to be made when it came to the portrayal of their father. They made minor adjustments but it clearly wasn’t enough to their liking so they severed ties.

According to the report, Richard Williams came across in the film as controlling, especially when it came to his daughters’ tennis careers and that included a 78 page outline of how he would guide their success right to the top of standings.  It further mentions his indiscretions and children that he had out of wedlock. Perhaps in their minds, the film would only focus on the sisters. Perhaps they forgot that their parents are a very big part of their success, especially their father who has always been considered controlling on some levels.

It is unfortunate that the Williamses decided not to support the documentary because based on all the reviews, it is a very complimentary piece and serves to inspire women to work hard to try to achieve such high levels of success. The filmmakers said they were disappointed but hope that Venus and Serena will one day change their minds and support it.

What do you think? Should Venus and Serena just “get over it” and support the film especially since most people already thought their father was controlling? Or are they right for “putting family first” and not condoning anything that doesn’t promote their family in a completely positive light?

Source: ballerwives.com

It’s hard to imagine what the London Olympics would have been like without Gabby Douglas. Though we’ve learned since her gold medal wins that her road to victory wasn’t quite as easy as we may have imagined, on last night’s “Oprah’s Next Chapter” special, the gymnast shared just how hard her journey was.

Sitting with her mother, Natalie Hawkins, the pair talked about Gabby feeling as though she was being bullied by fellow gymnasts at the age of 11 and wanting to move away if she couldn’t find a new gymnastic’s coach—otherwise she wanted to quit the sport altogether.

“One of my teammates was like, ‘Can you scrape the bar? And they were like, ‘Why doesn’t Gabby do it, she’s our slave?’”

“I felt like I was bullied and isolated from the group, Gabby said, “and they treated me not how they would treat the other teammates.”

Thankfully, she didn’t quit the sport, and managed to even become a dominant force in gymnastics just five years later. Sitting down with Gabby’s entire family, including her grandfather and siblings, Arielle, Joy, and John, big sister Arielle talked about first introducing Gabby to gymnastics. She described her little sister’s innate talent, saying one day she was teaching her how to do cartwheels, the next day she was doing one-handed flips and even surpassing her big sister/teacher. During the OWN special, Gabby got to be the teacher for once as she taught Oprah how to do a few tricks of her own on the balance beam.

Check out the clips from the 30-minute special below. What do you think?

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Source: BlackVoices.com

From BlackVoices

Gabby Douglas is really big in her hometown. Really big and painted on a wall.

The gold-medal-winning gymnast has a giant mural painted in her honor in Virginia Beach, Va. And she loves it.

“WOW!!! This is amazing!! (hashtag)so honored,” Douglas tweeted Friday from the Olympics in London, where the 16-year-old gymnast won two gold medals at the Summer Games.

The mural shows Douglas holding a gold medal with an American flag backdrop. It says “Way to go Gabby.”

Check out more pics of Gabby’s mural on BlackVoices.com.

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Source: Everyjoe.com

The “she” in the headline could refer to either Oprah or Gabby Douglas considering the way both ladies have been winning lately. Coming on the heels of breakthrough interviews with Bobbi Kristina, The Kardashians, and Rihanna, Oprah has just snagged an interview with 16-year-old Gold medalist Gabby Douglas for her next “Next Chapter” special on OWN. For Gabby, meeting Oprah is yet another perk of being a winner during this year’s London games—not that she hasn’t already seen plenty of those, including an endorsement deal with Corn Flakes.

According to Oprah.com:

Douglas will discuss her rise to Olympic gold and the intense and immediate media attention she found herself facing in London. Winfrey will visit the host family that provided a second home for Douglas during her training, and visit the gym in Des Moines, Iowa, where Douglas trained six days a week in preparation for London. Winfrey will also speak with Gabby’s mother, Natalie, who cheered Gabby on from the stands every day and stood behind her as she pursued her Olympic dreams.

Gabby has very much become America’s sweetheart during the past couple of weeks and this inside look at her road to gold will no doubt bring many curious viewers, which means Oprah could strike gold as well. The special is set to air Sunday, August 26, at 8:30 pm on OWN, one week after Oprah’s highly anticipated interview with Rihanna.

Will you check out the special with Gabby?

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zimbio.com

Well, if you’re one of the few people who opted out of Olympics coverage, let me tell you: YOU. MISSED. OUT.  At almost any given time of the Olympics, especially during this past week with the focus on track and field, there was some type of eye candy flashing across the screen.  I’m talking about cuties from every country, in every flavor, matching almost everyone’s taste.  Let’s see what we found…

Read the rest of this entry »

This hasn’t been Olympic Hurdler Lolo Jones’ week and ironically it has less to do with her not bringing home a medal after placing fourth in her 100-meter race last night, and more to do with what happens when the pretty girl doesn’t live up to the pedestal society placed her on simply because of her looks.

Let me explain that a bit. Lolo is a stellar athlete. The 30-year-old’s sheer participation in this year’s games tells you that, as do the Indoor world champion medals and records she holds. Is she the best hurdler on the American team? I’m not qualified to judge that, but I do know she’s received more mainstream attention than any other woman on the American track team. New York Times writer Jere Longman would say that’s because of a carefully calculated effort on Lolo and her PR team’s part. I think American bias plays a bigger role in that coverage than the columnist acknowledges.

In his piece, “For Lolo Jones, Everything Is Image,” the author wrote:

“Jones has received far greater publicity than any other American track and field athlete competing in the London Games. This was based not on achievement but on her exotic beauty and on a sad and cynical marketing campaign. Essentially, Jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be — vixen, virgin, victim — to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses.”

“Women have struggled for decades to be appreciated as athletes. For the first time at these Games, every competing nation has sent a female participant. But Jones is not assured enough with her hurdling or her compelling story of perseverance. So she has played into the persistent, demeaning notion that women are worthy as athletes only if they have sex appeal. And, too often, the news media have played right along with her.”

If you recall, Lolo has spoken quite openly about her virginity over the years—a choice I mentioned before I didn’t think was wise because it invites the very type of backlash exhibited here. Longman wasn’t writing this piece as an op-ed on sexism in sports coverage, he wrote it because he was disappointed that he expected Lolo to lose her race yesterday, which she did. For him, that confirmed his assumption that she thinks she’s too swexy for her sports bra. I say that because he opened the article with, “judging from this year’s performances, Lolo Jones seems to have only a slim chance of winning an Olympic medal in the 100-meter hurdles and almost no possibility of winning gold.” He then outlines the so-called scandalous endeavors she’s been involved in off the track, like posing nude for ESPN and being nearly naked on the cover of Outside magazine, then follows it up with, “If there is a box to check off, Jones has checked it. Except for the small part about actually achieving Olympic success as a hurdler.”

The crux of Longman’s article is Lolo had no right to make us interested in her if she wasn’t going to deliver the goods, better yet the gold. I think this backlash is proof of one simple thing: when you’re hot (because of your looks and your skill) everyone loves you, and when you’re not, the praise and the recognition fades as though it was never there. Longman would have no problem with Lolo’s image if she actually won. Yet his argument still isn’t that Lolo should have spent more time training than taking pics and that’s because he can’t argue that. Lolo did train—for four years—to participate in the Olympics this year. Unfortunately, that still hasn’t stopped the athlete from being called the Anna Kournikova of track, a slight that brought the hurdler to tears on the “Today Show” as she relayed her feelings on the backlash, saying:

“I think it was crazy just because it was two days before I competed, and then the fact that it was from a U.S. media…They should be supporting our U.S. Olympic athletes and instead they just ripped me to shreds. I just thought that that was crazy because I worked six days a week, every day, for four years for a 12-second race and the fact that they just tore me apart, which is heartbreaking.”

“I have the American record. I am the American record holder indoors, I have two world indoor titles. Just because I don’t boast about these things, I don’t think I should be ripped apart by media. I laid it out there, fought hard for my country and it’s just a shame that I have to deal with so much backlash when I’m already so brokenhearted as it is.”

Image: Hemera

-The Huffington Post takes a closer look at the deflating situation homeowners in foreclosure find themselves in. Back in February, the Obama administration and the nation’s five largest banks reached a $25 billion settlement to resolve “complaints of unlawful foreclosure practices.” Many say things haven’t changed despite the coming October deadline.

-Mitt Romney and President Obama are appealing to women and the working class  during their latest campaign stops. Romney attacked President Obama’s record on welfare.

-Feel like you’re working harder? The Labor Department says worker productivity was up 1.6 percent. That’s a modest figure, but if this keeps up, companies might have to hire. This is a bit of good news following the poor outlook of Monday’s jobs report.

-In Olympics news, Aly Raisman walked away with two more medals, a bronze on the balance beam and a gold medal on the floor exercise, making her the first American to win that individual competition. Gabby Douglas competed on the balance beam, but didn’t medal. Ever gracious, she said, “If it wasn’t my time to shine, it wasn’t my time to shine… I wanted to finish off on a good note. Event finals is something a little extra.” Love her.

Australia’s Sally Pearson beat out her American competitors to take the gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles. Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells, both from the U.S., took silver and bronze respectively. Lolo Jones didn’t medal again, prompting these very sad comments. And now this. Ugh. Allyson Felix competes in the 200-meter race today.

-USA Today offers tips to avoid purchasing a used car that’s been in a wreck.

-Resources for small businesses, and particularly black-owned businesses, are hard to come by. But TIME‘s Gary Belsky makes the argument that it’s a worthy investment.

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