Nadia Comaneci

“It feels good when you come to a place like Oklahoma to charge up the batteries. I need that.”

“Gymnastics was my way to travelling the world.”

“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.”

“Life is not easy for anyone. You have to have ups and downs. You can make mistakes. You learn and try not to make them again. That's pretty much my principle.”

“I cannot change anything, so I don't want to think about what I would have done.”

“Romania doesn't have a big tradition of gymnastics as a fun activity. We were a little behind in this aspect.”

“At 14, you think you compete, you retire and you get a job. I didn't think gymnastics was a career that was going to change my life.”

“People think you have pressure when you are young. It's the other way round, actually.”

“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.”

“We are not coaching on a daily basis because we often travel with our charity and commercial interests.”

“I know my life story sounds too extraordinary to be true.”

“People assume a lot of things about gymnasts - that the girls work too hard, it's way too much for them, they are too young to work so hard.”

“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 like America. I don't want to hurt America.”

“If I have a feeling of not trusting, I don't get too close.”

“In Montreal, I kept thinking, 'Pay attention: this is the Olympics! It only happens once every four years!'”

“I remember before the Olympics, I was asked, 'What do you think you're going to do in the Olympics?' and I said, 'I'm hoping I'm going to win a medal, and, if possible, it's going to be a gold one.'”

“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 always say, 'When the Olympics are happening, you shouldn't be in any other place in the planet - you should be here.'”

“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?'”