2004
Olympic Games
Athens, Greece

Gold in the Individual All-Round Event

The first event at the Athens Games was the hoop. Before I went out the journalists pestered the life out of me with questions like “How about the hoop? Are you not afraid to perform with it?” or “At the last Olympics you lost hold of it – will it happen again this time”, and so on and so forth. Nice questions, eh? Very helpful! So anyway, psychologically speaking, it was very hard, but everything went well and the hoop didn’t let me down. There were some tense moments with the ribbon, however. The ribbon routine is the last event and a very important one. It was hard to perform because of the high humidity, and the air conditioners were on full blast, so the ribbon could have got tangled up at any moment, which is what happened to Irina Chaschina. I had two or three dangerous moments, but I kept a very close watch on the end of the ribbon. When you keep a close watch on it and work with it properly (there are some special techniques you can use) you can control that ribbon even in a strong wind.

The Athens Games were very difficult for me. I felt they might be my last, and that if I lost fate would probably never give me another chance. It would have been very difficult for me to train for another Olympic Games. All those years since Sydney, after my disqualification, I was so tired, so devastated, that I just wouldn’t have had the strength – neither psychological nor physical – to go on without a win, without proving to myself and those around me what I was capable of. After my final performance I ran along the corridor and was simply happy that it was all over at last. At that point I didn’t yet know whether I would be Olympic champion, but I knew for sure that I had performed well!