Politics & Government
‘Chow’s Olympic Avenue’ Honors Coach Who Helped Shawn Johnson, Gabby Douglas Win Gold
Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute is helping put West Des Moines on the map.
A 500-foot section of Park Drive where Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute will be renamed “Chow’s Olympic Avenue” in a process that begins Monday by the West Des Moines City Council.
City Manager Greg Sparks said renaming the street is meant to recognize Chow for the favorable attention his growing reputation as the go-to coach for women’s gymnastics has brought the city, the Des Moines Register reported.
His back-to-back champions – Shawn Johnson in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Gabby Douglas in the 2012 London Olympics – captured the hearts of fans worldwide. Douglas moved from Virginia to West Des Moines to train with Chow after watching Johnson’s Olympic performance, and now Chow is getting calls from aspiring Olympic gymnasts as far away as Brazil and Egypt.
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Related: Olympic Gold-Medal Gymnastics: The Midas Touch in West Des Moines
Chow, who grew up in Beijing and was a medal-winning member of China’s national gymnastics team for more than a decade. He moved moved to Iowa in 1991 to work on his Ph.D at the University of Iowa, where he became part of the men’s and women’s gymnastics coaching staff.He and his wife, Liwen Zhuang, moved to West Des Moines and opened on Aug. 23, 1998, catering to young students, whose bodies are more flexible than the older gymnasts he’d coached in Iowa City and who are open to new techniques.
Find out what's happening in West Des Moinesfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
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