Olympian Shawn Johnson East Thankful for Family While Visiting Ancient Olympic Stadium
By Movieguide® Contributor
Former Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson East recently visited the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece with her family.
The Olympic gold medalist posted a reel to her Instagram which commemorated her time as an Olympian.
East captioned the video: “Going back to the Olympic stadium thankful but also, so proud of where I am today.”
“Life can look good a lot of different ways #olympics #family #parenting #kids #gymnastics,” she added.
Since becoming a mother, Johnson East made an appearance in the Blippiverse where she was featured in an episode on May 13.
Johnson East told PEOPLE, “When [my kids] got to come on set and meet Blippi and Meekah — our daughter has still not stopped talking about it. She thinks Blippi is her best friend and honestly, there are the kindest humans ever.”
“They played with my daughter as if they were best friends. And it was, it was such a special moment for me as a mom,” she added. “They are very, very excited to see the episode.”
In the episode, Johnson East explored the sport of gymnastics with Meekah, which Johnson East has done the same with her daughter, Drew.
She stated, “It’s very normal to start the sport of gymnastics around age 2. It’s really one of the only things you can put a young kid in, so for us, it’s a reason to get to do something active and give her an activity that she has a lot of fun with.”
Johnson East shared a “Throw Back Thursday” post of her time as a gymnast.
She wrote, “Gymnastics is a very humbling sport. You literally have to fall on your face hundreds of times before you ever have a chance of succeeding. It’s just a reality you learn early on. Now, combine that with the pressure of being on the world’s largest stage, with the world’s toughest critics, and that is an equation for the greatest life lesson of all. Just like at the Olympics, people in life will always judge you, critique you, try to tell you that you aren’t capable, or tell you you’re second-best [to someone else]. They will tell you not to go for your dreams or they will try to persuade you that it’s impossible, but I can tell you from experience that they are all wrong. The greatest life lesson I ever learned was to tune out the world, live out my passion and respect everyone else’s passions around me.”
Johnson East has since retired from gymnastics in 2012. She went on to compete in season 8 of DANCING WITH THE STARS, which she won. Johnson East also married Andrew East, a former NFL star.
The couple runs FamilyMade, which is a series of podcasts on the topics of parenting and family life.
Johnson East told US Weekly, “My favorite thing about running FamilyMade is that we get to celebrate and uplift families every single day.”
