Off Balance: A Memoir Read online

  I was still injured and unable to compete at Olympic Trials in Boston in mid-June. Fortunately, I was able to petition and earn a spot on the 1996 Olympic team based on my scores from Nationals. I was eager to learn more about the other five gymnasts who would be joining me and Kerri on the 1996 Olympic team, which would eventually be dubbed “the Magnificent Seven.”

  Shannon Miller, the most decorated gymnast in US history, ended up winning the All-Around at US Nationals that year. Like me, she was injured for Olympic Trials and also used those scores to petition onto the Olympic team. I didn’t know Shannon well at the time. She was nineteen years old, five years older than me, and had world titles, Olympic medals, and years of experience under her belt. She had been my main competition at Nationals and the media immediately ran with the “rivalry” angle that would continue to pit us against each other for years to come. I remember being taken aback by Shannon’s tendency to openly cry during her practices. She was such a fierce and steely competitor at meets that it caught me by surprise. I was mesmerized, watching her tears flow freely while her personal coach continued working with her. I admired that she didn’t feel the need to hide her emotion during practices. I knew exactly how she felt, wanting to cry during practice at times, but I remember thinking, If I ever did that, I’d be in big trouble! Shannon was living proof that showing emotion didn’t mean you were weak or less of an athlete—she has won more Olympic and World gymnastics medals combined than any other US male or female gymnast ever.

  Jaycie Phelps, who placed second in the All-Around at the National Championships, was immediately thrown into the mix with the rest of us vying for one of the seven spots on the US Olympic team. Her blue eyes, bouncy blond ponytail, brick abs, and gorgeous toe-point on the uneven bars made her presence hard to miss on the floor. Out of superstition, I would not watch any of my competitors at meets until I completed my own events, so I didn’t get to see Jaycie’s routines, but she was already a consistent force, and I had a feeling she’d be named to the Olympic team. While she clearly possessed a warm and generous spirit for such a competitor, I didn’t get to know Jaycie well until after the Olympics when we were participating in the post-Olympic tour. Even though we never said much during our time competing against each other, she was always friendly and kind in passing, and I knew I would like her more as I got to know her.

  Believe it or not, aside from Kerri, I rarely had a chance to talk with the other Magnificent Seven gymnasts leading up to and during the Olympics because we were all spread out training in different gyms and saw one another only at the actual competitions. I was given very strict rules by the Karolyis and was allowed to leave my hotel room only for practice, competition, physical therapy, and meals, so there wasn’t much opportunity to get to know them at the Olympics. Kerri and I had to sit with the Karolyis for all of our meals, while the other five teammates (Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Jaycie Phelps, and Shannon Miller) would sit together during the Games. I’d always look over at them as they laughed and talked, and wish I could join them. I’m sure they wondered why the heck Kerri and I never sat with them. I felt badly because it alienated us from the rest of the team to some extent, but deep down I hoped they understood that it was our coaches who didn’t permit it.

  I’d see our team captain, Amanda Borden, smiling and telling stories at their table. Amanda was outgoing and friendly—a nurturing soul who was kind to everyone. She was so genuine and beautiful, too, with short blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and an inviting, warm smile. Every gymnast on our team worked hard, but I remember thinking at one point that Amanda perhaps wanted the Olympic dream more than anyone. She stayed committed to the sport and continued to work just as hard after barely missing the 1992 Olympic team. Her determination was admirable, and I was happy that she was the captain of our Magnificent Seven team. I felt she truly deserved it, and her experience was helpful to all of us.

  I often wondered what Amanda and the others thought of me. I wanted to be friends with them, but at fourteen, I was much younger and smaller. I wondered if they looked at me like a baby with whom they had nothing in common. I wasn’t sure, but I was frustrated I wouldn’t even get the opportunity to find out as long as the Karolyis kept me so isolated. Sometimes I’d see my teammates in passing in the trainer’s room. It’d usually be quick, grabbing a couple of ice bags and letting the trainer Saran Wrap it on our sore muscles, but I always hoped that the other girls would be there at the same time so I could share a few words with them.

  Talented and intelligent, teammate Amy Chow made things look effortless. She had gymnastics tricks some of us only dreamed of throwing in competition. Her bar routine had combination after combination of difficult elements along with one of the hardest dismounts of the Olympic Games, which was called a double double (two flips and two twists in a tucked position). Amy was a force in her own right and solidified her spot on the Olympic team at the 1996 Olympic Trials when she showed true grit after a terrible fall on the balance beam. Amy slid down the side of the beam, whacking her face hard against it, but she battled through that fall and finished the routine. Talk about mental toughness! Amy was a calm yet fierce competitor on the floor and a woman of many talents off the floor as well. I wasn’t sure how she managed to be both an Elite gymnast and a great pianist at the same time. It was no surprise when she went on to study medicine and become a pediatrician after she retired from gymnastics. Amy also got involved in competitive diving and competed in pole vaulting at a national level. She is truly an amazing woman.

  I also always admired the relationship Amy had with her coaches, Diane Amos and Mark Young from West Valley Gymnastics club. In my opinion, Diane and Mark did an excellent job protecting Amy from overtraining and allowed her proper rest to let her body recover, so she’d be healthy and strong for competition. I remember during our team practices in the weeks leading up the Olympics, Amy was the only gymnast who did not work out twice each day at her gym back home. I found it so interesting that Amy could execute her routines so well with less training. I also admired how Amy’s coaches held their ground and didn’t let the Karolyis bully Amy or them into changing their training style. Marta usually tried to take charge of training even when a gymnast’s personal coach was standing right there, and she usually ended up calling the shots for everyone. I remember one day during podium training a few weeks before the Olympics when Marta started practice five minutes early. When Amy and her coaches walked in the gym, Marta got very angry because she thought Amy was late.

  “Amy, you’re late!” Marta yelled. Amy appeared startled by how mad Marta was and she started to cry. Before Amy could say anything, Diane put Marta in her place.

  “Don’t you ever yell at my athlete or treat her that way. She is not late. You started early!” is what I recall Amy’s coach yelling back at Marta. Diane was livid that Marta upset Amy by yelling at her with a nasty, accusatory tone—a tone, unfortunately, that I knew all too well and had heard daily. Wow! I’d never seen anyone stand up to Marta like that, and it was certainly the first time I saw Marta speechless. I had such respect for Diane for protecting Amy and not letting a Karolyi intimidate her gymnast. I wished I had someone to stand up for me like that.

  I would often recognize Dominique Dawes’s signature laugh from across the cafeteria as I sat with the Karolyis at lunch or dinner, and I couldn’t help but smile. She was upbeat, positive, and movie-star beautiful. I felt good being around her. As a competitor, she was muscular and strong yet graceful. I always found the power in her gymnastics breathtaking. She executed perfectly a back-and-forth tumbling pass combination on the floor that few gymnasts even attempted. Along with Shannon and Kerri, she was one of our veterans who had competed as a member of the 1992 Olympic team.

  I thought it was pretty cool that there were two Dominiques on the team especially considering that our name was rather uncommon. We’d both won titles at the 1994 US Nationals, she in the Senior division and I in the Junior division. We later pos
ed together for the cover of International Gymnast, the largest circulating international gymnastics magazine. The cover line read “Dominique Duo!”

  While the rest of the girls got a chance to unwind and tell stories at mealtimes, Kerri and I barely spoke at all over at the Karolyis’ table. In fact, “meal” time was typically an altogether unpleasant experience. By that point, I’d been humiliated about my weight at the 1995 World Championships and at other spontaneous weigh-ins and interrogations the Karolyis conducted. I was very insecure about my body, and to have them monitor my every bite at every meal was horrible and made me that much more self-conscious. Bela and Marta would eat as much of everything and anything they wanted off heaping dinner plates, yet Kerri and I were expected to sit across the table from them and eat very small portions of particular approved foods. Every once in a while, our team physician or trainer would feel sorry for me and sneak me some food or something sweet, like a small Rice Krispies Treat, into my room after dinner.

  Marta and Bela would often eye my body up and down in practice when I was stripped down to just my leotard. Their critical comments about my physique, public weigh-ins, and constant scrutiny of my food led me to believe that I was “fat” even though I was only seventy pounds at fourteen years of age. This warped body image would haunt me for years to come. The Karolyis were not the only Elite gymnastics coaches to have made me hyperaware of my weight, either. Unfortunately, for many coaches, it seems to be par for the course to keep their athletes light at all costs. Several other coaches I’ve worked with stressed weight in one form or another. Some were just less extreme than the Karolyis.

  With little else to think about, my mind began obsessing about food, and the more I felt I wasn’t allowed to have the foods I wanted, the more I craved them. On a few occasions when I was really starving, I hid food and ate it in secrecy. I was afraid for anyone to see me and tell my coaches. I had been so obedient for so long, trying to follow all of their rules to the letter, but no matter how well I listened, I was still scolded and humiliated and made to feel worthless, stupid, and, yes, FAT. What did I have to lose?

  Earlier that summer, back at the ranch, Kerri and I would talk about how we were going to indulge in food once the Olympics were over. We’d lie in bed after practice—and talk about how we could hardly wait to go down the cereal aisle at the grocery store and eat every sugary cereal we were craving, listing them one by one: Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, Corn Pops. At times, those small moments of joy—that wishful thinking about silly snacks and cereal—helped me get through to the next day of practice.

  I think Mama was concerned that I’d be malnourished, and she ended up coming to the ranch to cook my meals that summer. It meant everything to be able to see her on occasion during the day, but Christina was rarely permitted at the ranch and usually had to stay back in Houston with Maia and Papu. I really missed Christina, who, for me, was the unknown eighth member of the Magnificent Seven because she was the closest person to me, always there to cheer me on and support me. She sacrificed as much as any Moceanu, giving full days and weeks of her own childhood, waiting around for my practices to end.

  I remember when I was packing my bags for the ranch at the beginning of summer and Sports Illustrated sent a reporter, E. M. Swift, to my home to do a feature story.

  “Where you packing up to?” Mr. Swift asked.

  “I’m heading out to the ranch—” I started to answer, but before I could finish, I was cut off by Christina.

  “She’s gonna stay out there … and she’s never gonna come home.”

  Her words and her sad face just broke my heart. To some degree, Christina was right. Even though the ranch was only an hour’s drive from our home in Houston, I wasn’t allowed to come home for most of the summer.

  It was July 23, 1996, at the Olympics in Atlanta. Team USA was in second place going into the final day of competition. No US Women’s Gymnastics team had ever won team gold. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as we marched out to begin the day’s events. I said a few prayers, hoping that some divine power would look out for me, keep my leg strong, keep my leg pain tolerable, keep me calm, and give me the strength to deal with the pressure of perfection on this day.

  Competing in the Olympics in front of our home crowd was both a gift and a constant reminder that we had to win gold. I was blown away by the overwhelming passionate support of the American fans, and being at home also made me want to win that gold medal that had eluded the US Women’s Gymnastics team for decades. I felt there was no other option; we had to win—for our sport, for our country.

  Our team came from diverse backgrounds—socioeconomically and ethnically—and we truly reflected the face of America. I was fortunate to be on a team I believe had the most talented female gymnasts of our generation. I knew we had the goods to win, and I felt gold was within our reach.

  In Olympic competition, the rotational order of events is vault, bars, beam, and floor. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that our team would begin on the second event, uneven bars, because that meant that our final event would be vault. Vault had always been one of my strongest events in competition, and I had a fairly high percentage hit rate since I began competing as a child. I rarely made a mistake on vault. It was important to finish strong on a power event for me. The adrenaline coursing through me masked the pain in my leg to the point where it really wasn’t bothering me. Things were starting off right.

  We were neck and neck with the Russian team, who had come into the competition in first place. Initially it looked like it would be a battle between Russia and Romania for the top medals until the very end, but one by one, Team USA kept hitting, and we inched closer and closer to the top. I could tell by the crowd’s reaction with each of my teammate’s routines that we were on a good roll. I didn’t watch my teammates or competitors. Aside from my own superstition about it, I needed to stay focused and in the zone.

  Uneven bars went solidly for our team. I did one of the best routines I’d ever done, and I was so particularly proud to stick the landing at the end of my routine. I knew every tenth mattered and sticking landings was a must. It is the exclamation point at the end of a routine and, to me, if a gymnast doesn’t work on sticking landings, they’re missing a crucial element. It is that extra stamp of perfection.

  I was second to last on our next event, balance beam, so I stayed warm on the sidelines near the podium. Again, the crowd roared with each Team USA routine. The Georgia Dome was electric with the crowd’s enthusiasm. My turn finally came and with all of my teammates hitting their sets, I knew I had to nail mine, too. I could feel Marta’s eyes laser locked on me. She began to pay closer attention to my beam work the prior year because I was the only American to receive an individual medal (silver) at the 1995 World Championships on her event. Although she’d never admit it to me, I could tell she was proud of my beam work.

  I saluted and began with my signature shoulder roll mount. It always seemed to be a crowd pleaser and I loved that. As I came out of my mount with a chest roll down the center of the beam, I stood upright, did my dance poses, and took a breath before my hardest tumbling series—back handspring three layout step-outs in a row (three flipping elements connected without using any hands for support). As I felt my feet land firmly at the end of the beam, I did the required single 360-degree turn element, I breathed a sigh of relief that all was flawless so far. I moved through the next sequence of required jumps—two acrobatic moves and my switch straddle leap—did a few poses, and prepared for my dismount. I knew if I stuck my dismount, this would be one of my best routines ever on beam, as well. As I took one last breath, I heard the warning bell, which was the indicator that I had ten seconds left to complete my exercise to stay within the ninety-second time limit. Stick. Stick. Stick, I said to myself as I made a powerful move into my round-off double somersault dismount. I stuck the landing. I was so relieved. I nailed my hardest event and I did it at the Olympics. Thank you, God, I thought as I jogged lig
htly down the podium and was greeted with hugs from all my teammates, then Team USA head coach Mary Lee Tracy and Marta, who was an official assistant coach for Team USA. Bela was not an official Team USA coach, so pursuant to Olympic rules, he was not supposed to be allowed on the floor. He watched from behind a nearby security wall surrounding the events area.

  “Good job, little piggy,” I remember Bela saying to me when I went over to him. It seemed so random, “little piggy,” but he was genuinely pleased with my routine, so I figured that was his idea of a compliment—and effusive compliments from the Karolyis seemingly are reserved for the television cameras only.

  I was feeling really good. I was relieved that my leg was holding up and I could gauge from the crowd’s enthusiastic reaction that all the girls from Team USA were on fire. I hadn’t allowed myself to look at the scoreboard to see our standing because I didn’t want anything to distract me. I believed that if our team continued to hit our routines, we would win, so I didn’t want to worry about the scoreboard too much. The rotation bell rang, so I quickly grabbed my gym bag and followed my team in a single-file line, like little soldiers, marching to our next event, floor.

  I was looking forward to floor, the event where we could let our own personalities shine through most. I’d nailed my two most worrisome events, uneven bars and balance beam, and I was excited to perform my floor routine to the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in front of the Georgia crowd. This particular song was selected by Bela. As the story goes, Bela was driving in his car when he heard this 1979 hit by the Charlie Daniels Band and immediately phoned Geza, our team choreographer. I never had much input in choosing my music, so I was quite pleased that the song was fun, upbeat, and energetic. To this day, I often meet people who comment that my “Devil Went Down to Georgia” routine was one of their favorite Olympic memories, so it was definitely a good choice.