Salma Hayek wanted to compete at Olympics

London: Actress Salma Hayek says she was a good gymnast as a child and always wanted to take part in the Olymic games but her father refused to let her join the Mexican national team.

The 45-year-old Mexican beauty said she learned all about the moves in gymnastics by watching the sport on TV and caught the eye of Olympic trainers while at a summer gymnastics class, reported Contactmusic. "They drafted me... To be part of the Olympic team! But I was eight or nine and my father said no because I would have had to live in Mexico City in a boarding school for gymnasts, do eight hours a day of training, which for me was like paradise," she said. But Hayek insists she isn`t bitter about her father`s decision because she went on to pursue another of her hobbies and ended up in Hollywood. "My father thought I wouldn`t have had a normal childhood, and he wanted me to be normal. It`s too bad that with all his efforts it didn`t work out! But anyway, it worked out for me because now I`m an actress!." PTI