I wouldn't say that there's ever been an Olympic champion that didn't deserve to win an Olympic Gold Medal.

I was passionate. I found something that I loved. I could be all alone in a big old skating rink and nobody could get near me and I didn't have to talk to anybody because of my shyness. It was great. I was in my fantasy world.

I worked as hard as I could. I was always the first one on the ice, and the last one off.

There were no competitions on television. The first skating competition I ever remember seeing on television was the 1968 Olympics when Peggy Fleming won.

My mother stopped working when she had my brother. She was a full time mom until I started getting heavily into ice skating lessons, and it got to the point where they really needed my mom to earn an income.

Our family life, before figure skating turned it upside down, seemed normal. Our town of Riverside, Connecticut, was part of Greenwich, and we had the advantage of their wonderful community, with great beaches and beautiful parks.

I always had the sense that nothing was never good enough - striving for perfection. My mother and I had a sort of typical mother-daughter relationship.