I'd challenge myself to see how long I could go without a fall - on beam, I once went three weeks.
Gymnastics is the greatest sport in the world, and one of the hardest, but we have to watch out for domineering male figures who try to belittle and scream at young girls.
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.
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.
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.
My husband and I believe that if you treat a child well and nurture his talent and physical ability, in a healthy environment, the child will succeed no matter what.
We need to educate our elite coaches more and have a better approach to teaching the athletes about how to be healthy rather than berate them, humiliate them, use tactics that could scar them for life.
I was awkward-looking with huge brown eyes, dark brown, pencil-straight hair styled into an old-school Romanian bowl haircut from the 1980s. And I was very, very small. I was always the tiniest kid on my street and in my classes at school... The gym was the one place I didn't have to worry about feeling awkward for being so petite.
Some coaches are not educated at the elite level in health and nutrition. They're not educated in how the body works from anatomy and physiology perspectives.
I learned to take those experiences that were difficult in my life and in the adversity that I had overcome to use it for a positive change.
My parents didn't know anything about collegiate scholarships, so they had accepted the national team training stipend, the monthly stipend that I received after making the national team, so I was ineligible for NCAA eligibility anyway.
I got injured at the Olympic Trials in 2000. I could not jump. I could not walk on my leg properly. I couldn't bend my knee. I couldn't straighten it.
