Strug was trained per legendary coach Bela Karolyi, and joined a United States national team in 1991. Within 1992, she won a bronze ribbon at a Barcelona Olympics. Around 1995, she was a member of the gold-medal-winning team at the World Championships.

Her shining moment come when you took a 1996 Centennial Olympics Games inside Atlanta as a member of a “Magnificent Seven, “ the U.S. women's team. In a team competition, an event dominated per Russians for decades & never won per United States, the U.S. & Russian teams battled nip and tuck. A event come down to the final routine on the 2nd & final nighttime of the team competition, July 23, 1996.

Prior to 40,000 spectators, a United States experienced turned inside a about unflawed performance that got the on the face of it unvanquishable Russians on the brink of kill. A U.S. women required single one adept score in the vault to win gold. However Strug’s mate Dominique Moceanu fell on each of her vaults, registering unfortunate scores. Strug, world health organization experienced been overshadowed by better-known mate Shannon Miller and Kim Zmeskal, was the previous to vault for the United States.

Such as Moceanu, Strug fell in her foremost attempt. She arose, limping in an hurt ankle joint, & moved to the prevent of the runway for her 2nd attempt. She landed a vault, sealing a women's team gold by using the lofty score of Niner.712. Strug raised her arms fallowing her vault, turned & raised the babies once agaaround for the judges, so collapsed in agony to the mat, grasping her badly sprained articulatio talocruralis. Karolyi carried her to the dais to join her team for the decoration ceremony, fallowing which she was treated at the hospital.

Strug became the national sports hero, visiting President Bill Clinton, appearing at various television talk shows, making the handle of Sports Illustrated and appearing on the Wheaties cereal box sustaining more team members. ESPN's This is SportsCenter ad campaign poked fun at her injury by owning 2 ads featuring various ESPN workers carrying her about.

Shortly when her effort, Strug participated in the Ice Capades and Disney's World On Ice, then announced her retirement and enrolled in UCLA.