[3] She won three gold medals at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens on balance beam, floor and as part of the Romanian team.

[6] Ponor made her international debut at the 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, California, where the Romanian team finished in second place.

[7] In November, she competed at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup event in Stuttgart, Germany, where she placed first on balance beam (9.587) and third on floor (9.237).

[9] Later in March, she competed at the World Cup event in Lyon, France, and won silver medals on balance beam and floor, scoring 9.175 and 9.625 respectively.

[10] At the beginning of May, she helped Romania win the team competition at the European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Amsterdam.

"[14] Ponor was the first female gymnast since Daniela Silivaș in 1988 to win three gold medals at a single Olympics.

[16] In March 2006, she competed at the Cottbus World Cup and placed sixth in the floor final with a score of 13.250.

[22] In March, Ponor began training again with the Romanian national team under the newly returned coaches Octavian Bellu and Mariana Bitang.

[22] At the beginning of August, Ponor had a minor medical procedure to correct a congenital heart defect that was causing an arrhythmia and was able to resume training the same week.

[25] In March, Ponor competed at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup event in Doha, Qatar.

[citation needed] In June, Ponor competed at the World Cup event in Ghent, Belgium.

[32] At the beginning of July, Ponor competed at an international meet against France, Germany, and Italy in Bucharest, Romania.

[38] On beam, she originally was placed in third, but after American Aly Raisman had an inquiry accepted about her difficulty score, they finished in a tie.

Ultimately however, after a tie-breaking procedure which prioritized execution score, Raisman was awarded the bronze medal.

"[39] In February 2015, Ponor registered for the anti-doping control within the International Federation of Gymnastics, which suggested that she might be returning to competition.

In September, Ponor made her return in competition by competing in a friendly meet between Romania and France where she helped the Romanian team place first.

This announcement was made shortly after Ponor was named as Romania's flag bearer for the opening ceremonies, the first time this honor was given to a gymnast.

Ponor continued to compete in 2017 in the hopes of participating in the European Championships, since Romania was the host this year.

She began the year by winning titles on the balance beam and floor exercise at the Baku World Cup.

However, she qualified to the beam final and won the gold medal emotionally in front of a noisy and appreciative home crowd.