LOS ANGELES -- The 'Graceful Old Lady' of American gymnastics said goodbye with tears in her eyes, a smile on her face and a medal around her neck.
Emotionally wrought, mentally drained and delighted beyond expression, Kathy Johnson made her exit official Sunday night only minutes after earning the Olympic bronze medal on the balance beam.
'This is the first time I'm saying it publicly,' she said calmly. 'I didn't want to go into my last routine feeling this was the end.
'But it's not that bad. I thought it would be terrible, like someone reaching in and tearing out my heart.'
Always effusive in nature and willing to express her inner fears and feelings, the pretty 24-year-old blond shared the thought that 13 years of often lonely hard work and occasional self doubts came to full fruition with her bronze medal.
And as storybook endings would have it, her medal came on the final routine of her career and on the same beam that she fell from Friday night during the all-around.
The 5-foot, 100-pounder scored a 9.85 of a possible 10 points during her grand finale to place her behind Romanians Ecaterina Szabo and Simona Pauca, who tied for the gold.
'For years I dreamed of a medal on the beam, and I've been waiting all thistime for it to come,' she said. 'I thought only two days ago my dream would never come true.
'Nothing can compare to winning this medal, except for the team silver, which was special. I tried to imagine what it would be like to win a medal in the Olympics. And that's why it happened here, because I imagined it so long.'
Asked if all those days of training and nights of self-doubt would have been worth it even if she had failed to earn an individual medal, Johnson replied quickly, 'I could have stunk in the Olympics and said it was all worthwhile.'
And so ends a career that got started in a junior high school playground in Indialantic, Fla., a short distance east of Orlando, when the 11-year-old Kathy Johnson did a backflip off a baseball fence that someone just happened to take notice of.
Now she is ready for retirement, a critical stage that once frightened the life out of her ('I didn't want to be running scared'), and she would like to continue coaching, be a judge and hopefully do some television commentary.
With her she takes the prize that she worked so hard for during the last 13 years.
'It feels better than I thought,' she said, fingering the bronze that adorned her neck as she stood beside the gym floor at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus. 'I always tried to imagine winning an Olympic medal. Some of it you can imagine, like the lights and the crowds, but you can't imagine the feeling. That you have to experience.'
And her final message? 'Dreams can come true even when there seems no way.'
