Gymnastics is so much more than a sport to me. I am addicted to the feeling that it gives me. It feels like art. There’s a lot that goes beyond physical activity. Artistic gymnastics is so creative because every athlete moves differently.

Actually, the kind of body strength we have to train for is much more about mental strength.

Sometimes there are moments when I am more proud of myself than when mastering a new skill: it's when I begin to run for the warm-up, thinking: here we are again! Being happy with spending a lot of time in pain. Not only to test where my boundaries are, but to try overcoming them every single day. And it takes time to see improvement, like with most things, doesn't it?

It is a tough sport, no doubt. There's the strictness of my coach hanging in the atmosphere as soon as I step into the gym, some getting kicked out of the team, little girls crying. In gymnastics you have to look beautiful and maintain easiness a certain way when you are in the most pain. For me the type of pain I'm talking about feels different than fatigue from strength training or fitness. (I'm not saying fitness can't be intense.) I think if you didn't exeperience it yourself it's almost impossible to relate.

And then there’s comparing to others, of course. From day one I have always trained with gymnasts that were better than me. I was always the one looking for the skills the others already had. Many things didn’t come to me that easily or even at all. But I still loved it.

This subtle frustration reached its peak when I trained both figure skating and gymnastics around five times a week each, and in both training groups I was the most unskilled athlete and only there because I was motivated enough – certainly not for my skills.

As a gymnast I came across the feeling of only consisting of weaknesses that I have to get rid of. So go work hard for it. And then eventually there is this unbeatable feeling of confidence, when a skill feels well executed and I know I’ve done a good job. When my coach looks at me and just silently nods, I can't help but smile.

What it means to me? I don’t think I could ever describe. There is no me without gymnastics.

Yes, there are times when I hate opening the gym door and I hate the smell of chalk and I hate the hard work all over again, but isn't that what distinguishes the good from the great? As an athlete you can't give yourself a choice. I don't let myself choose if I want to train or not. I don't let myself choose if I want to eat healthy or not.

Some time ago my dad asked me what keeps me going. Because in the end it is all for fun. I don’t have olympic dreams, I don’t even have dreams to reach a certain competition or skill. I couldn't think of a better answer than:

I want to belong to those fighting.