After coaching Shawn
Johnson to Olympic
stardom, Liang Chow is
enjoying a respite from
the stress of high-level
gymnastics
IANG Chow will remember 2008
forever, but he’s glad it’s over. It
marked the culmination of many
years of toil at his gym in West Des
Moines, Iowa, a facility he opened
in 1993. By the spring of last year, he and his wife,
Liwen Zhuang, had molded local girl Shawn
Johnson into a multiple national and world champi-
on. Everything was going according to plan.
That is, until the skies opened relentlessly over
the Midwest. Johnson may have been on top of the
gymnastics world, but torrential rains left Chow’s
gym under water a week before the Olympic trials.
Johnson trained at Iowa State University while
her community bailed out the gym—literally. “With
all the [help] of the people and the parents, we got
back in business, running normally, in a week after
we got flooded,” Chow recalls. “The damage wasn’t too bad, especially with that tremendous help.”
We all know how the rest of the story went for
Johnson in Beijing: three silvers (team, all-around,
floor) and the gold on balance beam.
Johnson has stayed in the public eye, mainly due
to her victorious run on “Dancing With the Stars.”
Chow, meanwhile, remains anonymous as ever,
content to return to a somewhat normal life as a
gym owner.
“It was a great break for me after that many years
[of] fighting to be the best in the world,” says Chow
(the phonetic version of his real name, Qiao) of the
post-Olympic year. “That takes a lot out of you,
physically, mentally. You have to be very, very passionate every day to get in the gym and work hard
and to get your emotions involved. But after a
while, that was a great time for me to take a
break, to unplug myself, to feel myself taking
care of my business and my family. But I’m
very glad to see Shawn’s success in the
dance field [laughs].”
All of the can’t-resist opportunities have
kept Johnson out of the gym, which Chow
understands. “As one of your students, it
doesn’t matter what field she’s in,” he says.
“You’re just glad to see her succeed.”
Chow currently has “some little ones com-
ing up,” but will be out of the elite picture for
the time being. Still, at 41, he’s not ready to
By Dwight Normile
retire either, nor has he given up on Johnson,
should she ultimately flip back to the sport.
“I have not really had a chance to talk to her
about this yet, but I think, on my side, I’ll be more
than happy to help any way I can to bring out
another international elite or another Olympic or
world champion, if there is material that we can
build for it,” he says. “And particularly for Shawn, I
think after a year off, if she decided to come back
someday, that we [would] have to find a way of putting out a game plan to see where we can be for the
next few years.”
Looking back to Beijing, Chow is merely a footnote to the various subplots of the dramatic gymnastics competition. But his steady role as mentor
to Johnson should not be overlooked. For Chow,
the trip was also more than the first Olympic
Games for both him and his gymnast. It was a
return to his native city, complete with visits to rel-
Chow watches Johnson during the 2008
Olympic team final (left), and at the end
of the year, celebrates Christmas with
his wife, Liwen Zhuang, and son, Kevin.
