When Annia Hatch relives in her mind her double silver-medal experience at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the first picture that comes to her mind is a vision of the five Olympic rings on the wall behind her "and me on the (medals) podium — smiling," she said.
She had reason and right to smile then. And still.
As she stood on that podium, covered in silver from her own vaulting medal and from the U.S. women's team's second-place finish, she felt mainly relief and said to herself, "OK, I did this for a reason."
Hatch, of Guantanamo, Cuba, was a seven-time national gymnastics champion of her homeland and qualified for the 1996 Cuban Olympic team but couldn't go to the Atlanta Games due to financial difficulties, though she did win bronze in vaulting in the '96 World Championships.
Hatch assumed her Olympic hopes were gone at age 18. "I thought I was old, and there would not be another chance," she said in an interview Friday before performing at the Delta Center as part of the T.J. Maxx Tour of Olympic Champions, The tour now is off to Las Vegas for a show tonight at the Thomas & Mack Center.
University of Utah freshman Ashley Postell was introduced to the crowd just after intermission. Postell is the 2002 World beam champion who couldn't make the Olympic team due to injury and illness but will compete for the U. starting in January.
It wasn't the only setback Hatch, now 28, would overcome on her way to the medals podium in Greece.
She had met her future husband, American Alan Hatch, at an international meet prior to the Olympics, and after they eventually married, she moved with him in 1997 to West Haven, Conn., where she helped the former prep gymnast run a gymnastics club he owned, Stars Elite.
Demonstrating skills for young gymnasts gave her the knowledge that she could still be a pretty good gymnast. One day Alan was surfing the Internet and found a story about one of Hatch's former Cuban teammates, who'd been married and had a child and was back to competing.
Hatch said to herself, "Why not? I'm not that old."
By 2001, she had obtained U.S. citizenship, and a year later, she was a member of the U.S. gymnastics team. In February 2003, she received a release from Cuba to compete internationally for the United States and was soon named to the U.S. World Championships team.
Then a knee injury, suffered during training, kept her out of the competition. "Devastating. Painful," she says of that time.
She persevered, and a little more than a year later, she was finally rewarded for an extra 10 years of hard work.
Now, the kids in her Stars Elite gym listen just a little more intently to what she has to say because she is a bona fide star, and she's "having a blast" on the Olympic champions tour that ends later this month after barnstorming the country. "I'm spoiled," Hatch says. "I don't have to pay for meals or clean the house. This is a good time. It's changed my life completely."
All she has to do — until Nov. 28 when it all ends in Florida — is remember her parts in the show. She performs with all-around gold medalist Carly Patterson plus American Olympic teammates Mohini Bhardwaj, Courtney Kupets and Terin Humphrey, as well as members of the silver medalist U.S. men's team (Guard Young, Jason Gatson, Steve McCain, Raj Bhavsar Brett McClure). Her parts in the show include rhythmic, trampoline and acro gymnasts.
Hatch says she plans on staying in gymnastics competition maybe another two years while hoping also to get into modeling, acting and/or fashion design while still coaching at the club she co-owns.
"I love teaching," said Hatch, about to go on-stage in Salt Lake City. The audience Friday night was made up of many youth groups and young gymnasts who hope to some day live a dream like the one Hatch has.
E-mail: lham@desnews.com