I thought, 'Why am I not out there? I can still do this.' I felt I still had a lot of good gymnastics left in me that people didn't get to see.

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.

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.

My parents, Romanian immigrants, struggled to provide me a better life than the ones they had left in their homeland. They worked hard to give me every opportunity in life, and once I showed natural talent as a young gymnast, they spent every last penny on my training.

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.

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.