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

I'm trying to stay as calm as possible and focus one day at a time, but when reality sets in, I feel everything: anxiety, excitement, nerves, pressure and joy.

Were taught at such a young age that you can always be better and that youre never perfect and that youre never good enough.

With literature, sometimes a book is presented in the media as being say, a Muslim story or an African story, when essentially it's a universal story which we can all relate to it, no matter what race or social background we come from

Everybody sacrifices something in an attempt to reach what they think society wants.

My coach, Liang Chow, had one rule while I was training for the 2008 Olympics: no skiing. I could do anything I wanted outside the gym, he said, except ski.

Gymnastics has made me strong. I feel like it broke me down to my lowest point, but at the same time, it has given me the greatest strength anyone could ask for.