The International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (original) (raw)
"...It’s more than a sport. Gymnastics is a celebration. Gymnastics exemplifies the extraordinary lengths that the mind can go to ask the body to perform. And in doing that, and the wonderful things that you gymnasts do, it becomes a celebration of life..."
DOUG WILSON, 2012 Frank Bare Award
"I want to share with you the reason I love our sport so much. It teaches us how to fall... It teaches us to fall in such a way that even when we do not believe in ourselves that we have any energy left to continue, thanks to gymnastics, we always find the energy to get up in the end. We go on, and we never, ever give up..."
VERA CASLAVSKA, Class of 1999
"Being inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame is the highest honor an individual can achieve with our sport. The Japanese Gymnastics Association views it as the equivalent of a Nobel Prize..."
FRANK BARE, Class of 1999
"How did I start gymnastics? It was a long, long time ago. It was 1976, the first time I saw the Olympic Games. And I saw Andrianov on high bar. And I said to my mom, "Hey, I want to be like Andrianov." She said, "Hey, are you kidding?" As everybody now knows, I wasn’t kidding.
IGOR KOROBCHINSKY, Class of 2016
"In Ukraine, we are inviting young gymnasts, young people into the sport. We invite athletes from all over the world, from rhythmic gymnastics, acro, trampoline. We want to show younger generations what sport can give to you. What kind of doors you can open through gymnastics..."
LILIA PODKOPAYEVA, Class of 2008
"I am so blessed that I got to spend most of my life doing a sport that I absolutely love, and will always love, and have such a passion for… I also want to thank USA Gymnastics. I wouldn’t have had these opportunities without USA Gymnastics being there, and allowing me to go reach for my dreams and see how far I could go..."
SHANNON MILLER, Class of 2006
"I think the proudest moment for my coach, Kelly Hill, for my career, had to be the moment in 1994 when I signed for a full scholarship at Stanford University. For her, it was all about education…It is the coaches, behind the scenes, that allow the athletes to shine..."
DOMINIQUE DAWES, Class of 2009
"As I was lying on Olympus, without the strength to get up, I asked myself and God whether this was really the meaning of my life. And I found what it is that the sport teaches us. I looked back over my shoulder, past the hills of pain, ravines of injustice and rocks of slight... and I saw you—people that accompanied me, people who also trudged in life, people who choose the path of fairness. This is what our sport gives us—an appreciation of the fair route through life. Even when this route is thorny and difficult..."
VERA CASLAVSKA, Class of 1999
"I want to share with you the reason I love our sport so much. It teaches us how to fall…It teaches us to fall in such a way that even when we do not believe in ourselves that we have any energy left to continue, thanks to gymnastics, we always find the energy to get up in the end. We go on, and we never, ever give up..."
VERA CASLAVSKA, Class of 1999
"Gymnastics over-rode political differences. People in the United States, when they saw these wonderful athletes, they didn’t care that Tourischeva was from the Soviet Union, or that Nadia was from Communist Romania, or Vera Caslavska was from Czechoslovakia. They just looked at excellence. And admired it. And understood the true wonder of it all..."