Women’s gymnastics is a sport for the very young, a race against time before the body slows down and outgrows its ability to compete. Olympic records at age 11, 12 and 13 are the norm. At 25, Kathy Johnson, the captain of the 1984 Olympic U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team, was ancient. It was her eighth and last year of international competition. Just by making the team, Johnson had already beaten the odds. That she went on to win a bronze medal was a stunning victory for her personally and for the U.S. Gymnastics Team.

Today Johnson broadcasts at women’s gymnastics events for ABC, CBS, NBC, TBS and ESPN and speaks to sales professionals and managers all over America about what it takes to overcome adversity and achieve at ever higher levels. In this exclusive PSP interview, Johnson shares her dramatic struggle for success.

September 1959 — Rock ‘n roll king, Elvis Presley, tops the pop music charts, Senator John F. Kennedy eyes the White House, and in the small town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Johnny and Rosemary Johnson celebrate the birth of their daughter, Kathy. Little do they know what a small bundle of determination they have welcomed into the world.

At age 12, this pretty, petite bundle of energy and stubborn will to win experienced love at first sight. She sat mesmerized watching the 1972 Olympic gymnastics competitions. Totally unafraid and naive to the fact that she was entering the sport at a very late age, Johnson took to the balance beam like a fish to water.

"In the beginning, success came so easily to me and I had no fear. People would ask me if I wanted to go to the Olympics and I said `Yup!’ They didn’t take me very seriously, but I was serious and so sure I was going."

With Johnson’s eye firmly fixed on the Olympic games, her gymnastics career blossomed. In 1976, she competed in her first international meet. She also missed an Olympic team slot by five-tenths of a point.

The next Olympiad was four long years away, when Johnson would be 21 years old and possibly too old to seriously compete. She pushed the negative thinking out of her mind. Early on, she learned a lesson that salespeople know only too well: You can’t spend too much time worrying about the missed chances, lost sales, or bad performances. Learn what you can from a setback, then move forward.

"I was always stubborn. As a child, the worst thing in the world I could think of was quitting. Even though I couldn’t stand not to win, coming in second place was better than quitting.

"As time went on and I matured, winning was far from the motivation. Of course it was always a good feeling, but the motivation was to run my own race."

Johnson came back from the Olympic disappointment with a vengeance. The following year, she won the most prestigious meet in U.S. gymnastics, the American Cup, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Johnson was on top but it didn’t last long. Later that same year, she suffered the first of many injuries — a near career-ending broken elbow. Nonetheless, the U.S. Gymnastics Federation (USGF) tapped Johnson U.S. Gymnast of the Year.

Johnson worked hard to come back from her injury and it paid off. She finished eighth in the all-around competition at the 1978 World Championship, becoming the highest ranking American ever, and won a bronze medal in the floor exercise. She repeated her bronze medal-winning performance at the World Cup competition later that year.

Just as Johnson started enjoying success once more, it was as if an invisible hand slapped her down. This unhappy pattern would repeat itself throughout her career. Down but not out, Johnson demonstrated the qualities of a successful salesperson: persistence, determination, and the ability to constantly set new goals.

Johnson doggedly pursued her dreams. Despite the impending boycott of the Olympics, the U.S. gymnastics "Golden Girl" competed vigorously to become the 1980 Olympic team captain.

"The boycott was that much more frustrating to me because I had a hard time getting in shape to qualify for the 1980 Olympics. I had a near career-ending injury in 1978. I had a really rough year in 1979, undergoing knee surgery just six weeks before the World Championship. Things started looking like, `Hey, wait a minute! This isn’t the way I dreamed it!’

"After the boycott, I reassessed and reevaluated my goals, and I set new ones. I had a different motivation, a different inspiration. I was different."

Johnson was different. She learned that it’s not so difficult to achieve success — but it’s very, very difficult to maintain it. In 1980, Johnson proved that she was not just a flash in the pan. She was a true champion.

"When you suffer setbacks, you lose the feeling that everything is magical and you have somehow been touched and everything is just going to fall into place. You start to say, `No, I have to put it in place, it’s not going to fall into place.’

"Sure, I wanted to go to an Olympics. But I had to be realistic with myself. `Right now,’ I thought, `I’ve got to look at it a day at a time. First, I have to get in shape to do gymnastics again, then I’ve got to make the World Championship team.’

"I realized my career was not going to be what I had dreamed it would be as a child. And I made a conscious decision to get as close to my dream as possible, and that’s where my satisfaction would be. It was the best lesson that I ever learned. The more other people said I couldn’t do something, the more I had to show them — and myself — that I could do it."

Johnson focused on the here and now. But, at age 21, it just didn’t come easy to her anymore.

"I cannot tell you how rapidly the difficulty factor accelerates in gymnastics. The kids keep coming in at a higher skill level. In order for me to keep up, I had to work three times harder.

"I really had to concentrate. I had to take the energies that I had and really focus them. When you’re a child, you have so much energy you can waste it. As an adult, you have to really take what you have and use it because if you waste any, you will not have enough."

At an age when most people’s careers are just beginning, Johnson faced the prospect that hers would soon end — and it terrified her. Gymnastics was her life — her passion. When she suffered yet another injury in 1982, this one to her left foot, it seemed that the aging gymnastics star would surely hang up her leotard.

"I let the injury go because I was on a roll. I didn’t want to stop training or competing. It got to the point where I couldn’t walk properly, and I was doing all my landings on the outside of my foot. Finally, I was forced into a cast, and I had to miss the World Cup.

"After eight months, I was not showing a lot of promise. I wasn’t in good shape. I was 23 years old at the time and there was no reason for anybody to believe I could come back — even me.

"I called the Olympic coach, Don Peters. Earlier, he had offered me a coaching job and said I could train, too. I knew he thought I was through as a gymnast, but I wanted one last shot at training.

"Later he said to me, `I learned one thing — never to write you off. If I was ever going to give anybody a chance, it would be you.’"

And come back she did, emerging as the top American woman at the 1983 World Championships.

Refusing to be denied her Olympic moment, Johnson worked harder than she ever had before, and the grand dame of U.S. women’s gymnastics was named 1984 Olympic team captain.

Johnson took her leadership role to heart. A team captain’s responsibilities are very much like a sales manager’s. Johnson acted as the liaison between the team and the coaches; set the morale of the team and kept the confidence and energy level up by setting an example in workout.

"I knew I was not going to be a star at the 1984 Olympics, but I also knew I could contribute to the team. And I could always come through for the team, no matter how nervous or down I was feeling. If it is for the team, you rise above whatever is going on inside."

Come through she did, leading her team to a silver medal. But, she stresses, the real credit belongs to two critical teammates, Michelle Dusserre and Pam Bileck.

"They went up first and second for us on every single event. The first person up on an event is like the first batter up. You count on them so much. They have to set the pace. Their scores set the rest of the team’s scores up.

"It’s nerve-racking to go first because you know how critical your role is and you also know you’ve sacrificed your shot at a medal. The first up has very little chance of making the finals, and therefore no chance for an individual medal. Michelle and Pam were willing to make that sacrifice for the good of the team.

"Sometimes in life when you’re part of a team or a business or a corporation, there will be times when you’re the star. And there will be times when you take a back seat to make something work. You may not receive the recognition you deserve, but without you, it would not have happened."

Competing with the team was one thing, but as an individual performer, the 1984 Olympics was very difficult for Johnson. Bittersweet. She had waited for this moment since she was 12 years old and she was too excited. She also knew it was her very last chance at an individual Olympic medal. And for one and a half excruciatingly long days, it seemed that it was not in the cards.

"I had two back-to-back falls during the individual all-around competition. I was trying too hard when I fell. I was trying to be perfect. I wanted a 10 — not a 9.9 — and you can’t think like that.

"After the falls, it felt like somebody took my heart out, smashed it with a hammer, put it back in my body and said, `OK, now go ahead and compete.’

"I couldn’t look anybody in the eye — I was so distraught and afraid. I tried to find something inside me — some spark — that would inspire me to try again and not be afraid. To be brave and strong and all the things I was when I started my career."

Seconds before her final performance, Johnson turned to salute the head judge and, in that instant, found the spark she so desperately needed.

"The judge was Ludmila Tourischeva, a Soviet champion, the queen of gymnastics and my idol since I was a girl. She gave me this look of understanding — of ‘I know.’

"She could relate to me. I was older, I was still doing it, which is what she had done. And I thought, 30 years from now I will regret this moment if I don’t give it everything.

"I felt like a 12-year-old kid again. I was thinking of the beam in my backyard, where I would do routines and imagine I was in the Olympics. I could envision my grandfather walking through the gate to visit me while I was working out. And all of a sudden, I remembered what you compete for, and it’s not for medals, scores, applause or television cameras. There was this little girl deep inside that dreamed of this moment and I would never let her down.

"I got up on the beam and I felt at peace. It was like when I started — I was in love with gymnastics again. When I finished, I knew I’d retire, and that I was leaving the sport exactly the way I came in."

The gymnast stood on the champion’s podium, her bronze medal hanging around her neck, and shades of a little 12-year-old girl’s smile brightened her face. Kathy Johnson had, indeed, come full circle.