Success depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice, how much you are willing to alter your everyday life for a particular goal.

I believe in playing with your heart, with every fiber in your body-fairly, squarely, by the rules-to win. And I believe that any man's finest moment, the greatest fulfillment of all he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out and lies exhausted on the floor of battle-victorious.

Back in Romania, always I was struggling to compete with Vladislav Rastorotsky, the great Russian coach of Lyudmila Turishcheva. He was a powerful coach, internationally. I took him like the major challenge of my life, and pretty soon I'm beating him and we are pushing each other so hard, so fierce. But out of the arena, we are friends.

I still love to find and develop the young athletes in traditional ways. I like to watch the physical and mental growth. That has always been very exciting.

No competition, no progress.

In gymnastics, smaller will always be better in many ways. The stress in the head, that will be the same for all. But the stress on the body and the concussions it must endure, that will always be easier for the little ones.

This team just wasn't good enough today, but they had the unity I always wanted. To have an American team like this has always been a dream of mine.