Kerri Strug endures all the way to the Olympic Hall of Fame

From the moment she began gymnastics, which was soon after Mary Lou Retton inspired a generation of little girls to try the sport, Kerri Strug imagined one day celebrating an Olympic gold medal the way Retton had after winning the individual all-around at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Strug would jump up and down, wave gleefully to the crowd, revel in a moment of unfettered joy.

"Clearly," Strug recalled this week, "that wasn't the case."

Just as clearly, the combination of agony and ecstasy the world saw in Strug as she received the team gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games is what turned a brief, personal scrapbook moment into an enduring image in Olympic history books and highlight reels.

Strug took her final vault of the team competition on an ankle that hurt so badly there would be intense debate over whether letting her take one for the team was abusive, especially when it turned out victory did not depend on it -- something no one knew at the time in a sport scored to three decimal places.

No longer able to walk unassisted after landing the vault and collapsing in pain, Strug was carried to the awards stand in the arms of her coach, Bela Karolyi. Few would forget seeing this little girl, 4 feet, 9 inches and 80 pounds, getting the medal as she stood on one leg with the other wrapped in a knee-to-ankle bandage, knowing she would not be able to compete for any individual titles.

"I always had this certain vision of singing the national anthem and being ecstatic," Strug said. "Instead, I was thinking about the pain, I was thinking about the sacrifice, of whether I was going to continue or not, but I was also so happy. I had all those contrasting emotions in what was actually a short while, but it seemed like a long time up there on the awards stand."

Over the past 12 years, as Strug fleshed out her personal history with college degrees, worldwide travels and work as a motivational spokesperson, elementary school teacher, Presidential student correspondence handler and Department of Justice program manager, the few minutes that defined her sports career remain just as significant to her.

"Life has different stages," Strug said. "I dreamed of being an Olympic champion and worked 12 long years for that. So Atlanta is the highlight of my life so far."

That highlight will shine brightly this week, as Strug and her Atlanta teammates, the first U.S. gymnasts to win the women's team gold, are inducted Thursday night into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the Harris Theater in Chicago.