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I always tell myself, 'Keep on fighting.' I wasn't always a good diver—I had to work my way up to where I am now. If I had given up, I wouldn't be in the position I am today. I would have so many regrets.
Everyone was telling me you have this great potential and you can be on top. I didn't believe that, but everyone was just telling me to believe in myself. I did and I'm kind of up on top and it's amazing.
Gymnastics does take great focus and concentration. What I do is look to my coach. He keeps me focused. And I meditate to get myself confident before the competition floor. That helps keep me focused, too.
Gymnastics is the type of sport where you can't take something that gives you more energy. Something may be great for the vault, but then you have the bars after it and you have to be more sedate for that.
I was able to do Classics, the U.S. national championships and the Pan American Games and feel like I improved with each meet, but I was still struggling with a lot of residual pain from the two surgeries.
There's mornings when my body aches or my mind is just not with it. But that's part of being an athlete and accomplishing a goal that seems unattainable. You have to find your motivation, what inspires you.
I believe you can be young and compete in gymnastics if you have a coach who is looking out for you and if there is a good gym environment where the coaches are taking care of you emotionally and physically.
If I work on a certain move constantly, then finally, it doesn't seem risky to me. The idea is that the move stays dangerous and it looks dangerous to my foes, but it is not to me. Hard work has made it easy.
I think in any industry, it is competitive. There are a certain number of slots out there and opportunities out there. So you need to make sure that you're always on the top of your toes, trying to get better.
I like visualizing a lot, so the night before a competition and right before, I will visualize myself. I'll close my eyes, turn away from everybody, and just see myself doing exactly what I want to accomplish.
I'm not a dreamer for, you know, 'I want to go to the moon someday.' I accomplished something when I was young, which was much more than I expected to. My results were much bigger than I ever dreamed about it.
I realized I love motivating and I love empowering and I love inspiring people. I did that as an athlete for 18 years, and I am able to do that as a motivational speaker now as well as doing work on television.
This is probably why, my life is easier, and my family is very happy, because we never lie each other. This is probably all people supposed to feel each other, so be always in all of the world they'll be peace.
Four years ago, I felt the importance of the Olympics and how it is different from other events. It's a completely different atmosphere. The main advice I can give my teammates is to try to enjoy the experience.
I used to tell people if they looked at a map, it was right in the middle of the United States. But now everybody knows Oklahoma because of the Thunder and their success. I don't know if I'll get 'Why?' anymore.
Then I was lucky I met with my future husband, and I started new life with my husband, and I was happy again. He was a musician. I start to travel with him through Europe also and around the former Soviet Union.
For as long as I can remember, my mother went to church every single Sunday. She was born and raised in Romania as a person with limited means, and faith was something she could rely on - something that was free.
You try and learn from some people's mistakes. But you have to really trust the people who are working for you because they make a lot of decisions that could either do well for you or really screw up your image.
The fans had become used to looking toward the scoreboard whenever a gymnast stuck a landing. You could tell they were thinking, 'Was that good enough? Would the numbers read 10.00?' The athlete was looking, too.
If I was a boy, nobody would care that I worked out six, seven hours a day when I was 9 years old, no? Why were people always saying 'poor little girl?' I liked to work out and always did more than I was asked to.
I've had to make really big decisions, knowing the results were not always in my control. Through these moments, I've learned to be daring and take risks but understand that everything always happens for a reason.
When you're competing, you have to wear a sleeve that goes all the way down to your wrist. When you're training, you usually don't wear long-sleeved leotards, so there's a difference between training and competing.
And we realized that it was kind of a starting point for gymnastics, to go professional, and also to just get a lot more of the audiences in the arenas on the off years, in the years that we're not in the Olympics.
I like seeing advanced acrobatics, but I also like to see more than tumbling. It's important to combine the artistry of gymnastics with the tough skills. It's called artistic gymnastics. We should stand by the name.
I don't think I've ever not gotten nervous. When you work so hard for one special day or routine, you want to perform it better than you ever have. We always say at our gym, If you lose the nerves, you lose the sport.
There's very few of us who are able to be successful, which is why so many guys out of college can't continue the sport. It's unfortunate because there's just no financial backing. I've been very blessed with sponsors.
I basically have my life today as a result of what I did as a child. What did I miss out on? Yeah, I missed not hanging out at shopping malls, I guess, but that is not a big deal because you don't get a medal for that.
I take it a little bit hard on myself because I'm comparing myself a lot, and that's the kind of person I am because I'm so competitive, but it's also good, because I am competitive, so it kind of kicks you in the butt.
I've had to learn through experiences not to be afraid to fail. You don't know what the future holds for you. You can hope your dreams come true, but you have to be fearless. I don't want to look back and think, What if?
In some ways the ACL tear was a blessing. I had hesitated to return to elite gymnastics after the 2008 Olympics. I told myself I had already accomplished so much, and the road was just going to get harder if I continued.
My mother never watched me train in Romania. She wasn't allowed, it just wasn't done back then. My training was paid for by the government. My parents were not at the Olympics with me, either. I never expected them to be.
I don't feel like a star; I never have. I don't feel like a star; I never have. I always feel like I'm the young one, I'm the small one. I always have someone to look up to, and I think it helps me with motivating myself.
I literally tried every sport and was miserable. Soccer couldn't hold my attention. I couldn't figure skate. I'm afraid to swim. So I did dance for five years. It came a time where I was getting a little bit bored with it.
After thorough reflection, I realized that my desire to achieve my goals in this sport outweighed my self-doubt. This perseverance has helped me to be successful not only in gymnastics, but in my non-athletic life as well.
I'm very determined and stubborn. There's a desire in me that makes me want to do more and more, and to do it right. Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit.
[Alexei Nemov] has the best feel for the aesthetics of the sport. He doesn't just do a skill; he makes it look gorgeous. Some gymnasts think if their arm is bent a little it doesn't matter, but Nemov understands it matters.
In Romania, of course, gymnastics is among the most popular sports, and my parents had a dream of escaping the Ceausescu regime and giving their child a better life. So they came to the United States and put me in gymnastics.
The thing with gymnastics is people don't always know the events. So they'll ask me about the rings, and I'll have to say, 'Women don't do that.' Or they'll use the wrong words, like horse instead of vault. They get confused.
There are parents, siblings, teachers and friends, but counting on them to motivate you isn't fair. They've all got their own lives, and while the may be able to help you out, if you can motivate yourself, then you're golden.
The time leading up to the 1996 Olympics was the most demanding and stressful of my career. The sport I had loved so much was slowly becoming a nightmare as I trained with Bela and Marta Karolyi the summer before the Olympics.
My pump-up songs before I compete are not the usual. They're more girly songs. I love 'The Climb' by Miley Cyrus. It's about the journey and savoring every moment. I have 'The World's Greatest' by R. Kelly on my playlist, too.
Every year I just kept going back to gymnastics, but I didn't start out training 10 hours a day. When I turned 10 or 11, I got more serious and I focused a lot on making it to the elite level, and from there I just kept going.
My father wasn't allowing me control and the financial freedom that I was asking for. I was 17, about to be 18 within a year, so I started asking more questions because I felt that I needed to start learning about those things.
Standing on the podium at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and receiving a gold medal was the crowning jewel in a successful gymnastics career and, most certainly, the confirmation that my parents' sacrifices were not in vain.
I think this is all my life. Because if I was split gymnastics and something else like far, fun or to go with friends. No, this, you're supposed to one go, one straight road and to do every day. And touch the wall, of the goal.
I wasn't expecting two seconds of me on the medal stand to go viral after the Olympics. I came back to my room after the medal ceremony, and my dad said this picture of me doing a face I don't even remember making is blowing up.
We only had white socks in Romania. But when I used to come back from the States, I used to bring back pink and yellow socks with all kind of designs, and hair clips and elastic bands for the ponytail that had colourful designs.
It's human nature to be timid in the face of obstacles, but I have learned to believe that challenges are opportunities for genius to shine. In order to feel alive, we have to accomplish things that we once believed we could not.
I've realized the extraordinary power of sports to heal, unite and inspire. I believe the Olympics will serve as the ultimate platform to provide positive changes and I hope to inspire all of Japan through my strong showing there.
Mentally there's no question about whether I still like the sport and love doing it. I think it's pretty clear to everyone here that I love the sport. I love doing gymnastics and I love performing. So that's not really a question.