BEIJING – Over and over, she watched it, played the old VHS video of the 1996 “Magnificent Seven’’ Olympic gymnastics team, the one that is best remembered for Kerri Strug’s noble one-footed landing on her final vault.
“I watched it so much, the tape finally broke,’’ said Samantha Peszek, the McCordsville gymnast who was all of four years old when Strug was carried to the medal stand by then-head coach Bela Karolyi. “I can’t even tell you how often I watched it. I’d stand in front of the TV and do all the routines, even the foreign girls. I was totally obsessed.’’
For years, Peszek dreamed of a day like that one, sacrificing and fighting through all those workouts at DeVeau’s in Fishers, hoping her own movie would unfold with so much drama, ultimately yielding the storybook happy ending.
