Martha Karolyi Quotations

I am thinking it's possibly workable. The FIG will have to see how it turns out in the competition situation, and I'm sure they will be doing some small adjustments because it's a big departure from what we've had before.

I think we will be in a good situation.

I was pleased because we are at the beginning of the season. For this time of the year they did an excellent job.

Without this program, we cannot say we have a national program. We definitely are fighting to stay on the very top and be on the podium. The competition is getting tougher ... but we feel like our system worked very well.

After an Olympic year, and this is typical when the whole Olympic team goes out, the number of gymnasts is not as big. But we have at least six exciting juniors who will be seniors next year. We will keep our system, we will do periodic training camps and we'll take them to bigger competitions.

Strength of character . . . I cannot stress how important it is. She has all the chances. She's a world-class gymnast.

It's a system where you accumulate points for difficulty. With the (execution score) you are appreciating the moves, which gives it a good balance.

It's a very good thing. We always like to have a certain number of high-level gymnasts pushing each other, because there is a good competition. Everybody would like to come out on top. ... But we reinforce the idea that if you're doing your very best for yourself you're helping the team.

I'm one of the people who, from the beginning, said that it's not bad that we will be counting the difficulty skills. This system also gives extremely big importance to the precise execution.

If you don't like it, too bad. Somebody else will, and they will work it and they will be the winner.