At first Rizzo, then 14, saw what Australia saw - the rowing team that boasted an Olympic gold medal, world championship titles and featured on televisions ads.

But a ball later, the stardom faded away and the coxless four crew were just everyday people.

"It was good to be able to play [with them] and realise, they're superstars but also just human beings," Rizzo said.

"That was the kind of environment you got [at the AIS]. Everyone is normal anyway, it gives you the belief that anyone can achieve such great results."

Just as the Oaresome Foursome were the faces of Australian rowing, the name Rizzo became synonymous with artistic gymnastics.

Indeed, dual-Olympian Rizzo became Australia's first world champion in the sport when he won gold on the horizontal bar in 2006.

He also claimed nine Commonwealth Games medals, including three golds, as well as silver at the 2001 world championships.

Rizzo celebrated his 40^th birthday on Tuesday, exactly two weeks after the AIS marked the anniversary of when former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser opened the facility in 1981.

The gymnast is one of the longest serving AIS athletes of all time, being on scholarship from 1995 to 2010, and still works on site in records and information management.

"They surprised me with a birthday cake. There was an all-staff meeting and then they said 'the AIS is turning 40 and someone else is turning 40'. They decided to embarrass me," Rizzo smiled.

"It was a nice gesture, I was grateful for them to do that."

Gymnastics was one of the eight foundation sports when the AIS was opened 40 years ago, with the national training centre to stay at the historical Canberra site until at least the Tokyo Games.

Rizzo left Sydney to pursue his gymnastics ambitions as a teenager, joining the high performance program in 1995.

He attended Lake Ginninderra College with the likes of Lauren Jackson and the AIS basketball team that won the 1998-99 WNBL title. He fondly remembers hiding behind them and the other "giant athletes" when they arrived at school, so he wouldn't be seen getting off the bus.

For 26 years these memories have stayed with Rizzo because besides his athletic achievements, his time at the AIS provided him lifelong friends.

"Lauren Jackson was just Lauren Jackson then," Rizzo said.

"It was good to see people progress to achieving their goals and having great success in their own sport.

"I've built lifelong friendships as well. Going to the Olympics, you would know more than half the team because they either came through the AIS or were currently at the AIS.

MORE CANBERRA SPORT

"Everyone had the same goal, striving to be the best in the world. It was amazing to have athletes from all different sports, it was good to get other people's perspectives on how they trained and all that.

"It was a really supportive environment, if someone did well we would do something special in the dining hall and things like that. We'd watch it on TV, it was special."

The AIS was the best gym in Australia when Rizzo was at his peak, with the gymnast training under the likes of Yu Bo and Vladimir Vatkin.

He fondly remembers the Sydney Olympics when he finished 29^th in the all-around final, saying it was the best competition he had in that cycle.

"The crowd was just amazing, even at podium training they were yelling out 'Aussie, Aussie Aussie.' It made me really nervous before the pommelhorse and I was pretty shaky during training," Rizzo recalled.

"It was good to get a feel for that before actually competing. If I didn't have that, I would have been a wreck I think. In the all-around final, I was able to use the crowds energy - I saw it not as a negative but a positive. They just wanted me to do my best and I did."

But overall, it was becoming Australia's first gold medallist at the 2006 world championships that's stood out for Rizzo because the achievement was bigger than himself.

It helped show Australia could be the best in the world of artistic gymnastics.

"Becoming the first Australian medallist in 2001 was a great achievement. Then in 2006, it took me a few years to actually win a championship title, but to be the first was really important to me," Rizzo said.

"I really wanted to put Australia on the map, put the belief into gymnasts around Australia that we can be the best in the world - you don't have to come from China, Russia or Japan. We can be good enough in Australia to be the best."

Rizzo still trains in Masters Gymnastics, at the same gym as his four-year-old daughter Eloise.

Joel Moss, who trained alongside him at the AIS, is the head coach and director at Gungahlin Gymnastics - with Rizzo saying it's special to still work together and now across generations.

"I took Eloise into the gym when she was crawling pretty much, she started formal classes when she was two years old with my mother-in-law," Rizzo said.

"Gymnastics is a really good foundation sport and it really does give you flexibility, strength, coordination and agility.

"I think it's really important that most kids should do gymnastics, it'll benefit them for sport and academically as well. It's a good stepping stone if you want to stay in the sport, plus it's going to give you a big advantage doing other things.

"It's a privilege I had, and my daughter gets to do it as well. She has no idea about my achievements or anything because she's too young, but she likes going to gymnastics."