'I am very lucky to have been able to do something I love for so many years and I'm excited for what's next!'
"Seeing it characterized [in the news] as such a simple decision really caught me off guard," Raisman wrote in her statement, adding that her experience in the Olympics was "so much more" than what was portrayed in the media.
To help herself reflect on those experiences and what they meant to her, Raisman recently watched an old VHS tape of the 1996 Olympics, she wrote in her statement. Back then, she was just a "mesmerized" 8-year-old watching the gymnastics competitions "over and over and over again," dreaming of one day making it to the Olympic podium herself.
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