I knew when I started gymnastics, I wanted to have a lot of fun and eventually go to the Olympics. On the moments where I felt really down, I just remembered, ‘You’re almost there. Just keep going. Keep working hard.’
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 got into rhythmic gymnastics when I was four years old.
I worked hard in gymnastics since the time I was six years old until I retired at 23 years of age.
Gymnastics is my whole life, and I dream of going to the Olympics and being a world champ.
I think my mom put me in tap classes when I was three, which I never pursued. I don’t know how to tap. Then we moved to Portugal when I was five, and, I think, she put me in ballet classes immediately. Then I was expelled for being too restless – I am too high energy – and was told I could go do rhythm gymnastics.
The rest of the world laughed at American gymnastics before I came.
Gymnastics was my worth – it was my life – and I hated myself.
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.
I was lucky enough, when I was younger, to have the chance to do as much as possible, and I found what I wanted to do. I did swimming, gymnastics, kickboxing and the one that took off more than the others was acting.
This is what I’m supposed to do. This is what I’m meant to do, is elite gymnastics.
I don’t like messing up. I think that’s just a part of my personality. I don’t like to mess up or do anything wrong. When I’m in gymnastics, I like to see my hit percent as high as possible.
I did gymnastics when I was growing up and to this day I can still do the splits.
In gymnastics, you have to be perfect every step along the way.
I would love to learn popping, locking and robotics, gymnastics and acrobatics; it is amazing to learn these things.
At the end of the day, I just want to see good gymnastics!
The U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics.
After Rio, I joined the gymnastics team at the University of Utah. It was a hard transition, because I’ve always competed in elite gymnastics, where we throw big skills. In college, you don’t get any points for difficulty, but once I got the hang of it, it was a piece of cake.
The sport is called artistic gymnastics. So you do have to be a little bit of an actress.
Growing up, I was surrounded by R&B and Hip-Hop, and the closest thing I could find to dance was gymnastics which I watched on TV. So, I just used those avenues I found available right in my milieu to express what was inside of me.
I was really, really, really feminine and really into cheerleading and really into figure skating and really into gymnastics. Really into everything that other boys weren’t.
I struggled with self-esteem issues as a young girl, and it was not until my gymnastics career was completed in 2000 that I realized my accomplishments would not have been possible without my type of body, and I finally started to appreciate and celebrate myself.
The best part is when parents come up to me with their kids, and they say, ‘My daughter started gymnastics because of you.’
It’s just so weird coming into the gym and not feeling like, you know, ‘I’m going to die.’ Before it was like, ‘I’ve got to hit that routine or I’m going to get yelled at.’ So it’s just been really nice to kind of relax a little bit and be able to really focus on gymnastics and get to enjoy it more.
I did ballet and gymnastics, and then I started acting when I was eight – just doing amateur theater at a place called Oldham Theatre Workshop in my hometown.
When I was 6 or 7, my gymnastics coach looked at my quads and told the other coach to come over and see my quads. They were big then and still are. But I’ve kind of embraced it through the years.
When I was young, I loved gymnastics, but I discovered when I was 15 that I wanted a teenage life.
When you’re a child, you take things for granted. For instance, my mum didn’t have a lot of money, but I went to piano, ballet and gymnastics lessons, and tae kwon do.
While swimming was always a spotlight sport, I was, if you will, sort of present at the creation when gymnastics became the new star lead-off hitter.
At age 4 I started in gymnastics and used that as an outlet for my endless energy for several years.
Gymnastics is my favorite Olympic sport, hands-down.
It’s a form of mental and verbal gymnastics, and one of the things that appeals to me most about commenting on darts is that no one knows exactly what I’m going to come out with next – and neither do I.
After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.
If I thought of gymnastics as a job, it would put too much stress on me.
I grew up doing gymnastics. It requires discipline, eating right, getting sleep, lots of sacrifice. But the pros outweigh the sacrifice.
I think just being able to experience college gymnastics the way I have has allowed me to really express myself and have so much fun in the sport.
As people look up to me, I wanted them to know there is no excuse as there are various alternatives to be fit if one really wants to. Some of the most basic forms are walking, jogging, gymnastics, and dancing.
How I’ve always felt is that the fun in gymnastics got taken away from me too soon.
And we lost a lot because of that, and I think this is future gymnastics to separate ages. Because kids can do it more than adult. A woman and adult woman can show more than the small kids.
It is fine to be all focused on gymnastics if that is what you want to do, but once you are finished with gymnastics, what are you going to do?
I think everyone envisions what their life would be like if they were to live in this post-apocalyptic world. I love the idea of fighting every day to live, because it kind of applies to gymnastics; I feel like every day I need to be in control and focused and stay on edge.
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.
The truth is, gymnastics is a beautiful sport that has allowed me to grow and learn invaluable life lessons: sacrifice, dedication, discipline. Eventually, it led me to my voice.
I want to bring more gymnastics on television.
I think gymnastics trained me as a person, too. Without the lessons I learned in gymnastics, I would be crushed.
I always wanted to be active, and I always wanted to perform. That’s why I loved gymnastics.
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.
A lot of people don’t get to see the behind-the-scenes of what we go through and what it’s like. We aren’t perfect people. Everyone on social media is like, ‘They’re so perfect, they have their life together, gymnastics looks so easy.’ We work our butts off to get to where we are.
Gymnastics gives you the abs. It’s not like I sit there doing like a thousand crunches before every practice or something like that.
Discipline is the quality that carries over from gymnastics to acting.
I’ve said before, ‘gymnastics is abusive,’ but now I know it’s not the sport that’s abusive – it’s the culture that was created and accepted and normalized.
I bought a Fitbit, actually, and I just thought it was going to be an awesome way to track how I live and move and burn calories, but with gymnastics, it was a total waste of money because it’s more based off how you walk and not how you flip.
Without the lessons I learned in gymnastics, I would be crushed.
I didn’t feel like gymnastics were part of The Cars. I certainly philosophically didn’t want to prod the audience to react to anything. To me, it was more like negative theater. We didn’t really talk to the audience. I didn’t see that being a part of this band.
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.
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.
I’d always been one of the best in my gymnastics school, so I transferred to trying to be the best dancer, without knowing anything about ballet. I learned it as a routine.
While I love college gymnastics, I’d like to try and compete for my country.
I just want to continue with gymnastics because I’m still young and fresh. I think can get some more titles under my belt.
I’ve always lived my gymnastics career with a lot of passion and a lot of purpose.
