It's different today than it was then. In those days we were strictly amateurs. If I had wanted to stay in for the '80 Olympics, my parents couldn't have afforded it.

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

I wanted to learn how to skate backwards and they wouldn't help me and they went off and left me on my own.

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.

In group lesson number six I think we learned how to turn backwards and then just kind of wiggle. That wasn't really skating backward, but I guess I was going in the right direction.

My coach was a great politician, so he did most of the work. He was good.

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