Sports have always been a big part of my life. At school, I played a lot of different sports, and I was competing with other schools. I did everything: running, volleyball, basketball, soccer, Olympic-style gymnastics, and more! My history with sports gave me good concentration, focus, strength, and motivation to stay healthy.
My daily routine is set: I wake up and go for gymnastics, then dance class, gym, and come back home. That's my life. I am very boring.
I did gymnastics when I was growing up and to this day I can still do the splits.
My parents enrolled me in a gymnastics class when I was three years old, and I just was drawn to gymnastics. I loved it. It was my playground, and I could run around and be free there.
Everything is about your movements and precision and timing, which is what gymnastics is about.
In high school I never went to the prom because I was too consumed with gymnastics. Also, with my hair in pigtails and looking about 10, I wasn't exactly date material.
Figure skating is an unlikely Olympic event but its good television. It's sort of a combination of gymnastics and ballet. A little sexy too which doesn't hurt.
It might have been easier to retire, to say my knee couldn't handle it and let that be that. At the same time, the prospect of not being able to compete in gymnastics anymore was heartbreaking.
Retiring was scary and it was tough to give up gymnastics, but so many great opportunities have come from it that I never expected.
Gymnastics, especially in my family, is more than a sport. It's our life, it's our careers, it's our family business.
See, when I went to the Olympics in '76, the gymnastics people knew that I was good, but everybody else, after I won, everybody was like, 'Where's she coming from? Who is she? What is Romania?'
I had a couple friends from all the different cliques in school, but my true friends were my gymnastics teammates. I grew up competing with them for ten years.
Of course, most people remember that I received the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics competition.
Up to nineteen seventy six when I quit gymnastics I was very, disappointed because I didn't have anything which is, live with. I didn't have a friend so I didn't have a coach anymore.
Realism hasn't fallen out of favor with most people, who are interested in people's lives rather than gymnastics of style or literary trends. It's a certain kind of academic who undervalues realism, largely because it is not amenable to endless exegesis.
The Olympics shows the community what gymnastics is all about.
Because up to sixteen years old you feel gymnastics more. You can show your emotion, grace, like woman gymnastics, not kid's gymnastics. I feel I have good shape, and I can do it elements everything, but, it's not competition for me.
Gymnastics uses every single part of your body, every little tiny muscle that you never even knew.
In football, you're dealing with grown men. In gymnastics, you're dealing with prepubescent teenage girls. There's a huge difference. At that age, you're not confident enough to have a voice.
I got into rhythmic gymnastics when I was four years old.
I was an extreme tomboy. I did competitive gymnastics for over 10 years. I cut my hair like Winona Ryder, with that little pixie cut.
Finally I almost dropped gymnastics because I couldn't live without create, and you know, and then, all public in the world start to say, we don't want to see gymnastics without OLGA.
I can put my legs behind my head and sing 'Happy Birthday.' Because that's something that me and my friends used to do when we were in gymnastics class as kids, and I can still do it. I was doing it since I was 8 and 9. They used to call me Gumby. Very bendy.
Chess is intellectual gymnastics.
The rest of the world laughed at American gymnastics before I came.
Having the opportunity to go to the U.S. Olympics was great because I was the first Latina in over 30 years to compete in gymnastics at the Olympics.
I had ridiculous amounts of energy. Mom's like, you're driving me crazy - do you want to try gymnastics? From the moment I started it, I loved it and it kind of was like storybook from there.
I was a rhythmic and athletic gymnast for a little while. Then, when I quit gymnastics, I fell in love with yoga. So sometimes I think I'd like to open up a yoga studio.
When I go in to compete, whether it's gymnastics or anything else, I do my own thing. I compete with myself.
How many people in the world is, each of them is individual. And I like to eat bread, somebody don't like that. You know this is the same in gymnastics.
I try to frighten my very young colleagues into studying and understanding their voices before they attempt things that are beyond them. It's wise to take gymnastics and swimming to strengthen the body, because people don't realise what an athletic undertaking singing actually is.
Some of the authorities would like to remove rhythmic gymnastics from the list of Olympic sports and turn it into art. I think this would be wrong, as rhythmic gymnastics is a true sport - we train around six hours per day and sometimes spend entire days in the gym.
In gymnastics, you have to be perfect every step along the way.
My daughter is exceptionally chatty. I'm not a braggy mother but she is gifted - with the personality of a Russian gymnastics coach.
Maybe that's why I like gymnastics - because I like to fly.
In gymnastics, everything is a competition. You want to have your hair look the best and your makeup look the best. You want to be the best, and you want to have the prettiest leotard.
