Part of being a champ is acting like a champ. You have to learn how to win and not run away when you lose. Everyone has bad stretches and real successes. Either way, you have to be careful not to lose your confidence or get too confident.

It wasn't always easy getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to go to the rink. Sometimes I wanted to just go back to sleep.

I worked also, doing things such as our paper route and, later on, waitressing.

I was a tomboy who liked to play rough just like my two older brothers. That's probably why I liked the athletic part of skating - especially the jumping!

I took group lessons at a rink near my home. We first had to learn how to stand up on the ice wearing skates. Eventually we learned to move forward, but soon found out that it was not that easy to stop! So that was our next important lesson.

I think it's a lot harder for the pros to have a long career in ice dance and in pairs. It seems the singles have a little bit of a longer career.