The coach of gold medal winning gymnast Gabby Douglas was greeted by dozens of his friends, family and students upon his arrival back in Iowa Wednesday. It’s the second time Liang Chow has returned to Iowa after one of his athletes claimed Olympic gold.

Liang Chow (Photo by Radio Iowa)

He was surprised with the reception at the Des Moines Airport. “This is just a wonderful, warm feeling to be back home,” Chow said. Over the past two years, Chow worked with Douglas – who won team gold and the individual all-around gold medal. Chow said the experience this year in London was much different than four years ago in Beijing. Shawn Johnson was expected to do well in 2008 after dominating world gymnastics competitions the previous three years.

“Gabby was in a different situation because nobody expected much out of her, other than the ones who really know her and knew she had the potential to be on the very top,” Chow said. After claiming her two gold medals, Douglas made major mistakes on the uneven bars and the beam – and failed to medal in those events. Chow said although his time in London was rewarding, it wasn’t always enjoyable. “The experience (involved) lots of challenges and lots of struggles. Now, when I think back, it was fun…sort of,” Chow said with a laugh. “I’m just glad everything turned out good.”

The best young gymnasts from around the world will now be knocking on Chow’s door and he could relocate his gym anywhere, but Chow doesn’t plan to leave Iowa. “I feel like I can’t find a better place to live,” Chow said. “This is my dream home.” Chow moved to the U.S. from China in 1991. He and his wife opened the gym in West Des Moines in 1998.

w/ Jim Field

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• Omaha 6, Colorado Springs 1
• Iowa 7, Reno 4

• Colorado Springs at Omaha, 1:05 p.m.
• Reno at Iowa, 1:05 p.m.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – Buster Posey continued his second-half tear with a three-run homer, Barry Zito pitched 6 2-3 innings of two-run ball and the San Francisco Giants defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 Tuesday night.  Posey leads the major leagues with a .448 batting average and 30 RBIs since the All-Star break, including 12 in his last six games. The home run extended his hitting streak to 11 games.

Joaquin Arias drove in the Giants’ other run with an RBI double. Melky Cabrera also doubled for San Francisco, giving him a big league leading 152 hits.  Zito (9-8) allowed  two solo home runs by Allen Craig. He gave up eight hits overall with four strikeouts and no walks. Jeremy Affeldt got the last four outs for his third save in four chances.

Cardinals starter Lance Lynn (13-5) allowed four runs on eight hits with two walks and six strikeouts in six innings.

LONDON (AP) – No more golds for Gabby, one more for China. And Aly Raisman finally caught a (tie) break . Raisman was initially fourth after missing a medal in the all-around because she was on the short end of the tiebreak rules. But she questioned her score and judges revised it, giving her an additional .10 in difficulty.  That put her at 15.066, identical to that of Romania’s Catalina Ponor. But Raisman got the bronze because of a higher execution mark.

Deng Linlin won the gold medal while teammate Sui Lu captured the silver. It was China’s second gold of the day, following Feng Zhe’s title on parallel bars. Gabby Douglas was seventh after a fall. But she finishes the London Olympics with two gold medals, including the all-around title, gymnastics’ biggest prize.

w/ Chris Parks

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Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz spoke to the media Monday with four days of fall practice already completed. Ferentz says every day of practice is key heading into the season opener in Chicago. “The good news I think we have a lot of healthy competition at a lot of different spots, that’s certainly a positive. We have a depth chart that’s been distributed, it’s pretty much something you’ll probably be able to throw out the window in a week or two because I think this is the kind of football team that is going to look different in the weeks ahead and heading and certainly as we go into September and October,” Ferentz says. “Obviously what we’re doing on the field right now is going to be very important.” This will be Ferentz’s 14th season and what he calls his youngest team.

“We’ve got a lot of guys that have been in the program, I think when they get the opportunity they’ll do a fine job,” Ferentz says. He says this will be a little like the 2009 season where many of the starters on the offensive line were new going in, but they did a good job. Greg Davis takes over as the offensive coordinator, and there will be a new face carrying the ball after turnover at the position. Ferentz says they’ll go with the players who are in camp, and so far they are coming along. “You know everybody looks good right now, but you’d expect that. Over the course of time usually the picture becomes a little bit more clear, and then the other obvious part, more important part of it, is how players perform in games,” Ferentz explained. “And that’s something you just can’t simulate in practice, its a different arena certainly. So the first hurdle is what do we get done in camp, who looks the best and we’ll try to get them line up correctly, and see how they respond once they go to Chicago, and that will be the next phase.”

One constant for the offense is senior quarterback James Vandenberg. “You know this is James’ senior year. I don’t want to overstate it for him or speak for him, but he obviously wants to play his best football this year as you would hope,” Ferentz says. He says Vandenberg got with the new offensive coordinator early on and was probably ahead of everyone in learning it. “Flipping it over on Greg’s side, how do you not love James Vandenberg? James is just an outstanding guy, so I think that has been a pretty good marriage certainly already.”

The defense will also have a new coordinator, but in this case, Phil Parker was already on the staff and moved up. Ferentz says it’s not as big a transition for the defense to the new coordinator because all the terminology is the same. The Hawkeyes open the season against Northern Illinois at Soldier Field in Chicago.

Iowa native Lolo Jones advanced to the semifinals of the 100 meter hurdles Monday, at the London Olympics. The Des Moines Roosevelt graduate won her quarterfinal round heat by posting the second fastest time (12.68 seconds) of the 50 athletes in the field. Des Moines Register sports columnist Bryce Miller, who’s in London, believes Jones has a good shot at winning a medal. Miller also watched Jones compete in Eugene, Oregon in June at the Olympic Trials where she narrowly qualified for the final spot on the U.S. team.

“I don’t think I would’ve said she had a shot to medal at the trials, but I’m rethinking that a bit now,” Miller told Radio Iowa. Sally Pearson of Australia, the ’08 silver medalist who’s ranked number-one in the world, posted the fastest time this morning at 12.57 seconds. Americans Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells also advanced to the semifinals. Harper won Olympic gold in 2008 after Jones was leading the race, but Jones clipped the second to last hurdle and stumbled to a 7th place finish. Miller said Monday, this is the healthiest Jones has been in over a year.

“She had surgery last August, a year out from the Olympics, and then she had a couple of hamstring injuries earlier this year,” Miller said. “So, they really went into the trials without training or working out significantly. To make the Olympic team with the (quality) field they had, that said something, and then today (Monday) she ran with even more confidence. You could tell talking to her and her coach, I think she truly is significantly healthier than she’s been (dating) all the way back into last summer.” Jones posted her best time of the season Monday. Miller said Jones and the other medalist hopefuls will run even faster, Tuesday.

“Who didn’t put the foot on the gas all the way during the heat races? I would imagine Dawn Harper, looking at her race, didn’t go at top speed because she won so easily. Kellie Wells was in the same situation. So, we’ll find out, but it was a good start (for Jones), there’s no doubt about it,” Miller said. Dawn Harper, like Jones, has ties to Iowa. Harper’s father and siblings live in Iowa City. The semifinal races for the 100 meter hurdles are scheduled for 1:15 p.m., Iowa time,  Tuesday. The final will take place at 3 p.m., Iowa time.