It has been 36 years since Olga Korbut made the Munich Olympics her own, winning three gold medals and one silver for the then Soviet Union as a 17-year-old and capturing hearts around the world in the process.
Yesterday, at Metro City Plaza in Tseung Kwan O, she showed that her passion for the sport has not dimmed.
Prancing the sidelines like the proud 'mother of gymnastics', she put on an exhibition that involved three of her American-based students, a group of delighted children from the Tseung Kwan O Alliance Kindergarten and three members of the Hong Kong squad.
Korbut, 53, urged all the athletes on and - more importantly - encouraged them to have fun, a factor she said was sadly missing from the sport these days.
'Today gymnasts are too serious,'' she said. 'You have to smile, to enjoy yourself. That's what has made the sport so important to me over all these years. What I say to my young students is to perform, to take delight in what they do - and then the work becomes much easier.'
Korbut ended her Olympic career following a gold and silver medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics but has continued to coach from her adopted home in Arizona in the United States after moving there from her native Belarus 17 years ago.