Amid US gymnastics disappointment, Shawn Johnson's grace

Upon arriving in Beijing, she is asked her impressions. At the beginning of perhaps the greatest moment in her athletic life, her thoughts turn not to herself – to fear or excitement – but to her coach, who is from Beijing.

“It was really cool to be in Beijing airport and to hear him speak Chinese,” she says, beaming.

What she says next, she says with such earnestness it makes the heart melt: “It means I worked hard enough to get him back to his hometown.”

When Chow hears her say something like this, which she does often, his face softens, no longer the coach. In Houston, he needed a moment to compose himself. “When she says that, it makes me emotional,” he said. “She’s such a sweetheart.”

That she is even here in Beijing is a testament to her uniqueness. While many of her teammates have fathers and mothers as coaches, pushing them, she has parents that, at times, have sought to hold her back, not wanting their daughter to be warped by pressures that they cannot even imagine.

But there is an inner iron in their girl more often associated with swimmers and basketball players so muscle-bound that they could lift her like a barbell. “She is a very strong person, both physically and mentally,” says Chow.

And there is no doubting how she became so. At the first gymnastics press conference in Beijing, she explains what excites her about being here.

“It is great to be here with all these athletes who work so hard.”

She explains what it is like having Nastia Liukin, perhaps the world’s second-best gymnast and her top competition in the all-around, on the same team.

“It makes me motivated to go home and work ever harder.”

Chow explains how she behaves in practice.

“She just wants to get her work done – boom, boom, boom,” he laughs.

For other athletes, it could sound like something you might read on an inspirational framed picture: WORK ETHIC. Pat. Boilerplate. With Johnson, she is the picture itself, every automatic routine evidence of what hard work can accomplish.

There is something almost inconceivable in this – a 16 year old with such determination, all of it her own. And yet, alongside a hunger that most often seems linked to a chest-thumping, self-promoting bravado – that seems inextricable from it – there is the girl who sat beside her captain, speaking words of comfort and love in the moment when they were surely most desperately needed.

She was the mother, taking a loved one under her arm.

“She’s got a good little soul,” her mother, Teri, told Sports Illustrated.

No matter what her performance in the individual all-around Friday, perhaps nothing at these Games will be more precious than that one moment, when we all caught a glimpse of a young woman whose gifts stretch well beyond the world of sport.

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