This is Olga Korbut at 53, in Hong Kong to help promote this August's Beijing Olympics and still very much in love with the sport that took her to fame, and very comfortable with all the attention that still surrounds her.

When we are taken to the centre stage for a chat, there are spotlights shedding blinding light from two separate angles and an assistant says she'll turn them off to make things more comfortable. But Korbut is unconcerned. For her, there has been no escaping the spotlight, not since she first took up gymnastics as an eight-year-old in her native Belarus.

'You know what, I was born a gymnast,'' she says. 'Nobody pushed me. I just got it. What I loved, and still love, is that this is beautiful.'

She points to a young girl warming up on the nearby mats. 'See how beautiful she is,' Korbut says. 'I help make them beautiful and the sport helped make me beautiful.'

As a young athlete, Korbut was guided by the legendary Belarusian coach Renald Knysh, who helped perfect the unique moves - among them one that would become knows as the Korbut flip - that would take her to Olympic glory at Munich and again in 1976 at Montreal, where she shared gold in the team competition and won silver on the balance beam.

If you talk to anyone following the sport when Korbut first appeared in Munich, they'll tell you that it seemed like the world had stopped moving. She was all anyone was talking about. Anywhere.

And this was long before the current climate of worldwide media saturation meant we all seem to know everything about everyone. For Korbut then, as now, attention was fine.

'I just did it,' she says. 'I think I am absolutely different. I never really thought about it being the Olympics, I was just competing. I was just thinking about doing it.

'Look around the people here today and you can see what I am all about. I am a performer, an actress. I want them to need me and to love me. I want to show them all how beautiful I am.'

Korbut says she was confident from an early age that she would be successful. 'I always thought I was beautiful and I always thought I would be famous,' she says, smiling. 'I knew then that I just had to turn up and put on my show.'

It's a confidence she tries to instil in the athletes she trains from her home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Confidence and fun.

'I teach these people not just to do gymnastics, to be in gymnastics,' she says.

'You have to enjoy yourself. I was never really happy, satisfied with my performances, though. You can't be. You have to keep trying, to keep improving and to keep putting on a show. I love this life to death. Look out at the people watching us and you see what we do is give, not take. And that will always keep you happy.'

Korbut is undecided on whether she will go to the Beijing Games, but is certain of one thing - success for the home nation.

'You know, I think they will be perfect because they are so serious about it,' she says. 'They want it more than anyone.'

And she says she has experienced first-hand the role sport can play in bringing nations of the world together - something the IOC has hoped all along would be one of the lasting legacies of the Beijing Games.

Korbut's impact on world sports back in 1972 meant she was feted by world leaders - and was even given some credit in helping thaw Cold War relations between the superpowers.

'You know, I met with [then-US president Richard] Nixon,' she recalls. 'And he said to me, 'I am a politician but I wish I could be just like you. I wish I could always land on my feet'.'

Korbut will hold further demonstrations at Metro City Plaza today at 2pm, 4pm and 6pm, and at the same times on July 5 and 6 at Ma On Shan's Sunshine City centre.

Born a gymnast

1 The 149cm Korbut was dubbed the 'sparrow from Minsk'

2 Started gymnastics aged eight, and first entered the Soviet national championships at 14, placing fifth

3 Won six Olympic medals in her career, including four gold and two silver

4 Unique moves became known as the Korbut Slato (balance beam), the Korbut Flip (uneven bars) and the Korbut Flic-Flac (balance beam)

5 Named United Nations' Woman of the Year in 1975 for her ability to bring the world together