Shawn Johnson

“I want to go to college, obviously go to London and just kind of figure out the rest of my life.”

“I was at the Olympic Games winning medals and I still doubted my image. I doubted what I looked like. That's sad.”

“I've never had a teammate competing with me my whole life.”

“I have a chaperone everywhere I go - my mom.”

“My approach to gymnastics in Beijing was heavily based on the amount of difficulty I could do.”

“I need to learn how to face challenges.”

“I told myself after 2008 that I was done for good. But they say you can't keep a gymnast away from her sport.”

“My parents- they've been my biggest influences and supporters since day one. They teach me every day that happiness comes from within and not from something outside of your heart.”

“I had surgery to repair the ACL in February 2010 and was back in the gym by June, but rushed things too quickly and ended up re-tearing my MCL in September.”

“Stay strong. Stand up. Have a voice.”

“People only see gymnastics on TV and in the Olympics at such an extreme. So it can be intimidating.”

“I still can't believe I'm an Olympic athlete.”

“I think about my goals. There were a lot of times in gymnastics when I really didn't want to go in and train, but you can't make it to the Olympics if you don't train!”

“To finish off this whole Olympics by finally getting the gold medal, it's the best feeling in the world.”

“I don't feel like a star; I never have. I don't feel like a star; I never have. I always feel like I'm the young one, I'm the small one. I always have someone to look up to, and I think it helps me with motivating myself.”

“After 13 years of hard landings in gymnastics, one ski run had delivered the biggest injury of my career.”

“We're taught at such a young age that you can always be better and that you're never perfect and that you're never good enough.”

“I fell in love with running, and I finally have time to do it now.”

“Of course, when you're training your whole life to get to the Olympics, you train for gold.”

“Every year I just kept going back to gymnastics, but I didn't start out training 10 hours a day. When I turned 10 or 11, I got more serious and I focused a lot on making it to the elite level, and from there I just kept going.”