Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.
People always accused me of not smiling like my rival Olga Korbut, but that was just my personality. When you're balancing on a nine-inch beam, you have to concentrate. But if you look back at the footage, I was always smiling and waving at the crowd after my performances.
I had more pressure when I competed in Moscow. I had no pressure in Montreal because I only went to do my routines and hoping I didn't mess it up when I was on the bar. When I came back, 10,000 people were at the airport and I thought, 'Why?' because, in my mind, I hadn't done anything different from what I used to do in my gym.
I never thought I would be standing here, married to an All-American guy, living in Oklahoma. What a country.
I always say, 'When the Olympics are happening, you shouldn't be in any other place in the planet - you should be here.'
I am very highly appreciated in my country, and everybody seems to love me.
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.
My marriage to my husband, Bart Conner in 1996 is my proudest personal moment.
It feels good when you come to a place like Oklahoma to charge up the batteries. I need that.
I think that when you are on a four-inch balance beam, you don't care about laughing or smiling or waving to the crowd because you're going to be down in a second.
I think gymnastics was associated with the 10. I thought that belonged to the sport, and somehow we gave it way.
Scoring the first 10 in history was a big deal, but the fact that even an electronic scoreboard could not figure out how to put out a score, it made the story more historic.
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.
You can't jump from little things to big things. It just takes time and patience.
I work out every day, but my idea is to make something short. I work out a maximum half hour. I only do like 20 minutes of cardio, and I do some stretching and some light weights, and I'm out of there.
After retiring from competition in 1981, I did exhibitions and coached.
Of course I used to smile and laugh in 1976, but not when I was competing. Please show me somebody who laughs when they are concentrating; I always smiled.
It was my mother who got me involved in gymnastics, sending me to classes when I was six just to stop me doing back flips on the couch and destroying the furniture.
I had a lot of energy, and my mom decided to look for a place where I can spend the energy, because I was jumping on the couch and furniture, and I was jumping on the top of the things in the house.
We are not coaching on a daily basis because we often travel with our charity and commercial interests.
