Off Balance: A Memoir Read online

  Feeling confident, I mounted the podium for my floor routine, saluted the judges, and held my first pose, waiting for the music. As soon as the Georgia crowd heard my song, they let out a roar—by far, the best and loudest crowd of my life—and I remember thinking, Let’s do this. I went on autopilot, letting my muscle memory guide me through my routine without really thinking much, just letting it happen and performing it to the max. I hit my fourth and final pass, which was a two-and-a-half twist backward (900 degrees of revolution twists in the air) and finished without a break or a step out of bounds. I couldn’t help but smile as I danced into my final pose. I felt it was one of the best floor routines of my life. The crowd went wild, and when I turned toward my coaches and teammates, I could see that they were cheering and happy with my performance. I was on an emotional high and felt so relieved that, again, I hit everything. A serene feeling of happiness washed over me at that point. Everything was going right—at the Olympic Games! Even the Karolyis seemed happy with me. I imagined Tata and Mama with big happy smiles on their faces.

  As the rotation bell rang and we fell into a single-file line headed toward our last event, the vault, I peeked up at the scoreboard for the first time. Team USA was in first place with a razor-thin lead over Russia and Romania, our archrivals. Yes! I smiled to myself. Gold was within reach.

  Vaulting would ultimately determine our medal color. Our team was strong and overall very consistent on vault, so I figured it was good that we were ending on a high note. For me, it had always been the least nerve-wracking of all the events. Although I had mostly avoided vaulting and hitting landings immediately prior to the Olympics due to the stress fracture in my leg, I knew I could still do this vault with no problem. I felt prepared and ready to finish strong. I was second to last in the lineup, so I waited on the sidelines near the podium. I learned early on in my career that you never relax in competition until you’ve completed the final element of your final routine. I did my best to stay focused. I kept my legs warm, running in place, doing cartwheels. One by one my teammates hit their vaults beautifully. The crowd roared with each, knowing it brought Team USA closer to gold.

  Finally, I was up. I saluted the judges at 79½ feet and, like I’d done countless times in practice and prior competitions, I ran with force and attacked the vault. I had done this particular vault so many times, I could practically do it in my sleep—a Yurchenko one-and-a-half twist (540-degree twist) in a layout position.

  Flump! I was stunned to find myself on the mat on my rear end. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. Embarrassed, I stood up as quickly as I could and saluted the judges. I was completely confused, and I guess my coaches were, too, because they had not a single word of technical advice for me. My personal coach on the floor, Marta, didn’t say anything to me at all. She and Team USA head coach, Mary Lee Tracy, looked stunned and just stared blankly at me.

  I looked around. I needed someone to tell me what they thought I did wrong. I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake, and I couldn’t place what had happened myself. I was in shock. I had done this thousands of times and always landed on my feet. What was happening? I had only a few short seconds to think while I was walking back to the end of the runway for my second attempt. I tried to be strong and not let any emotion show on my face even though I was going crazy trying to figure out what to do differently on my second vault. I still couldn’t wrap my head around what I’d done wrong. I had done three of the most perfect routines of my life on the other events, and I certainly didn’t want to finish the day this way, especially on an event that I usually nailed over and over again with no problem.

  As I got to the end of the runway, I looked over at Bela behind the security wall. I was desperate for any tip or advice. Strangely, I remember feeling absolutely nothing when I looked at him. He could’ve been any other person in that crowd of thirty-three thousand. I felt no connection with Bela at that time.

  “Stronger, Domi,” Bela said, waving his hands around and making exaggerated facial expressions. Stronger? This didn’t make sense to me because my first vault was very strong, full of power, and I ended up on my rear, anyway. I knew that wasn’t my problem. Bela often said little tidbits and phrases when the cameras were rolling that I felt weren’t really meant to help me, but more to make himself look like the enthusiastic, involved coach for the television audience. I guess this is when communicative coaching is crucial. I wished Alexander were there with me. He could always identify the problems and knew how to give me specific instructions for adjustments when I was struggling. I had a second shot to make things right. I think everyone, including myself, thought, Well, that can’t happen twice.

  I was somewhat numb. It felt like a slow-motion horror movie. I was terrified of failure and for my fall to define my Olympic experience. I was so disappointed in myself to have made that mistake, but I tried to put it behind me and focus on this next vault. Olympic rules stated that the highest score of the two vaults went toward the team total, so I had to keep it together. I had one more chance.

  Standing on the runway, the judges were looking straight at me. The green “go” signal on the Longines scoreboard lit up and it was time. I saluted and started down the runway. I went for the same style vault as my first and pushed as aggressively as my little frame allowed. I wanted so badly to stick it this time—the only way to truly erase my first vault. In retrospect, after watching film of this second vault, I realize that it was wrong for me to focus so much on sticking the landing. It would’ve been better to focus on making the landing. This vault felt even stronger and higher than the first, but sadly, it ended the same. I made the same mistake and, again—flump—landed on my rear end. I bounced up quickly. I was stunned and devastated. The crowd felt it, too. They seemed as shocked as I was. I felt like I’d let people down: my team, my family, the fans, and myself. I couldn’t believe that I worked so hard for this Olympic dream moment and in a flash of a few seconds the competition day ended like this for me. As I jogged off the podium, coach Mary Lee Tracy patted me on my back but didn’t say a word. What could she say? I know she felt badly for me, but she had to move on, setting up the board for Kerri, our team’s final competitor.

  I kept walking and Marta stepped into my path.

  “Two times? Too bad,” Marta said, making sure I knew just how badly I’d messed up. She could see that I was already lower than low. She clasped the back of my neck tightly with her fingers and squeezed that trademark Marta “you messed up” squeeze. I absolutely cringed every time she did this in training when she was angry with me, but here at the Olympic Games, it was worst of all. As she held my neck with the one hand, she pressed her other hand to my forehead for a second and shot a sharp, disappointed glare into my eyes. And that was that. Marta and Bela barely said anything else to me that day or for the rest of the night. They acted as if they didn’t know me, as if I were invisible. I took it hard. It was naïve of me, but I thought somewhere deep down, Bela and Marta cared for me at least enough to give me some scintilla of support after I’d fallen in front of millions.

  The support was going to have to come from elsewhere.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Amanda Borden said as she hugged me and patted my back. My other teammates each came over to hug me and offer their support. I was emotionless and empty. For several minutes, I wasn’t sure if I had lost the gold medal for the team. I waited in suspense like everyone else.

  In a daze, I put my wrist guards away, gathered my belongings, and turned to cheer for my friend and teammate Kerri as she prepped for her own vaults. Kerri saluted and made her way down the runway. The eyes of the arena were on her. Shockingly, Kerri also fell on her first vault. The entire arena went silent, in shock, I’m sure, thinking, How could this be happening? I know I was thinking it.

  The two anchor vaulters for the team, Kerri and I, had just made three uncharacteristic mistakes in a row. I prayed that Kerri would land her second vault. Kerri looked liked she injured her ankle. She wa
s assessing her ankle, rolling it around and limping after she got up. I didn’t know what to think. Kerri appeared in shock as she walked back down the runway. The entire team had nagging injuries, some worse than others. As young as we were, we looked like elderly people sometimes, hobbling to our rooms after practice with bags of ice attached to our bodies with plastic wrap, but we were taught to be tough and push through. Kerri did exactly that.

  As she saluted for her final vault, I whispered, “Come on, Kerri” and held my breath. Within thirty seconds, I witnessed her do the vault of her life on an injured ankle. I’d never seen anyone land a vault quite like that. At first, the entire arena was ecstatic that she’d landed the vault and not fallen a second time, but the joy was immediately followed by concern as Kerri fell to her knees in pain after saluting the judges on one foot. She stayed on all fours holding her ankle until the team trainer and Marta came onto the podium to help her off. The paparazzi swarmed Kerri to capture every single expression of pain across her face as she was carried out of the arena on a stretcher. I already knew how very tough my training partner was, and if she was in too much pain to walk, I knew it had to be bad.

  Our team score was finally posted and the arena erupted in cheers and applause, waving American flags, chanting “USA, USA!” Team USA was on top of the leader board. We had won the team gold. We did it. A first for US Women’s Gymnastics!

  So much drama had occurred in that the arena in the last ten minutes of the competition, I was trying to absorb it all as I waited behind the curtain to be called for the medal ceremony. I was thrilled to have won a gold medal, but my joy felt marred. I had performed three of the best routines of my life that day on the uneven bars, balance beam, and floor and contributed high scores on those events to help our team’s overall victory, yet the disappointment of my falls was hard to shake. A single nod or hug from Bela or Marta would have meant the world to me at that point, but by then they would look right past me. I had been completely erased from their minds. My emotions were bouncing all over the place—happy, sad, guilty, embarrassed. I knew they felt that I shamed them, and I wasn’t sure if I deserved to smile as I received my medal. The way they ignored me made me feel like I was a ghost on the team, not truly worthy like the others.

  Thankfully, as I was lost in my thoughts in the waiting area, my teammate Jaycie Phelps noticed my sadness.

  “What’s wrong?” Jaycie asked with a warmness that almost made me cry.

  “I’m worried about my father, what he’s going to say.” I didn’t need to say anything else because she knew exactly what I meant. Word had pretty much spread throughout the gymnastics community that Tata was a hothead with super high expectations. My teammates may not have known me well, but they knew that I feared Tata like I feared the Karolyis. I hadn’t seen my parents yet, but I knew Tata would probably be very disappointed that I fell.

  “Come on, Dominique! We just won the gold medal! Be happy!” Jaycie said excitedly. I wished I could feel like her and all my teammates, who were excited and truly living in the moment. Watching them hug each other and celebrate, I realized then that no matter how much I wanted to feel happy, my happiness depended on what my coaches and parents thought of my performance and whether or not they were pleased with me. It was hard to be happy when I felt I wasn’t perfect enough for them. Maybe I didn’t deserve to be happy.

  As I write these thoughts now, of course, they seem absurd. I worked my whole life for that moment, to win Olympic gold. Darn right I deserved the medal and deserved to be happy about receiving it despite my performance on vault. Did I not contribute some of the highest scores on the three other events? I think that my fourteen-year-old mind had been so warped by the incessant criticism from my coaches and Tata that I actually began to believe that I had to be perfect to deserve any kind of happiness at all.

  I will always appreciate Jaycie for trying to comfort me. She insisted that I put a smile on my face as we lined up backstage. Although it was a bit forced, it did actually make me feel better and enjoy the moment as coaches from the USA and other countries came up to congratulate our team.

  I was near the end of the line as we marched into the arena to receive our medals. The arena was on fire with excitement, constant flashes from cameras, and deafening cheers from the crowd. The team final scores posted: 1. USA 389.225, 2. Russia 388.404, 3. Romania 388.246.

  As we walked toward the podium, Bela appeared out of nowhere carrying Kerri in his arms. Her leg was bandaged and her foot was in a splint, but she was smiling now and she looked okay. Bela wedged himself right behind me in line. As Team USA walked up the stairs and onto the podium to receive our recognition, I waved to the crowd. Bela was still behind me carrying Kerri as our team stood on the podium. For a brief moment, I thought Bela might actually stay on the podium as we received our medals and I was horrified. I knew Bela was a publicity hound, and I wouldn’t have put it past him to try and steal some of the attention away from the gymnasts. He was still carrying Kerri, looking around and smiling at the cheering crowd. Bela certainly knew how to play the part of the caring coach when the cameras were rolling. The media ate it up. I had seen the true face of the Karolyis and heard them bad-mouth many of their own gymnasts behind their backs. I didn’t believe that Bela truly cared about Kerri or her leg. He was putting on a show and trying to share in the limelight that Kerri had earned with the rest of her team. I was relieved when he finally put her down and walked off the medal stand. Finally, with all of us on the stand together, I looked out into the sea of people and saw that this truly was America’s gold medal! The crowd was so joyous, so supportive.

  For fifty years, it was believed that the Americans could never win a women’s gymnastics team gold medal because of the powerhouse of the Soviet Union and their centralized system. Their program had been state-funded with national teams hand selected based on their mental and physical makeup. They typically had a pool of thirty gymnasts and approximately twelve coaches assisting at all times. When this system collapsed and the Eastern bloc countries broke apart, there were not only seven Soviet gymnasts to compete against, there were more than twenty-one gymnasts when you included the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, not to mention the Romanians and Chinese. Our competition was fierce, so it was a huge feat to finally prove that the Americans were the best in the world in women’s artistic gymnastics.

  From the podium, I scanned the crowd right, left, then up and down. Below the podium, in the section generally reserved for media and photographers, I saw Tata front and center in his patriotic Uncle Sam top hat and his jumbo Sony camera hanging around his neck. His roll of film must have just run out because he had lifted the camera to his ear to listen to the film rewinding. Although a little embarrassed, I was impressed that Tata, in this silly hat, managed to get the best seat in the house for the gold medal moment. It made me chuckle. I knew that Mama, Christina, and my ever-supportive aunt Janice were in the audience, too, probably cheering their lungs out, but I just couldn’t see them.

  My teammates and I rallied in for one final team hug on the podium after the national anthem and team captain Amanda said some words of congratulations, then we did a victory lap around the arena. We were escorted to the VIP press box where our parents were waiting. It was time to face Tata and Mama. The butterflies tickled my stomach. While all my teammates couldn’t wait to see their families, I wondered if there was some way to put off seeing mine—which was pretty sad considering I’d just reached a lifelong goal that they had mapped out for me and helped me achieve. I knew I wouldn’t be met with the same enthusiasm as my peers would be, but I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. Part of me didn’t want to see the disappointed look on their faces. Even though I had just won a gold medal, the expectations placed on me were higher.

  My parents were near the front of the room along with Janice and my supportive, cheering little sister Christina. Unfortunately, Tata’s and Mama’s glum faces said it all. I figured they had to be proud of me on some l
evel, and I wished they’d shown it more. They made it tough for me to feel proud of myself at that moment.

  “What happened on your vaults?” was the first thing Tata said to me. I didn’t answer.

  Although Mama wasn’t saying much, she did hug me and privately whispered, “Good job,” but I saw the grief in her eyes. Perhaps it was because they both knew how hard I’d worked. If only I knew then what I know now, my entire attitude would have been different. It didn’t have to be this way. Being treated like a failure or being belittled for not being “perfect” is so hurtful and damaging to a child.

  That night, our team was invited to a post-Olympic party held in our honor at Planet Hollywood and hosted by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. I was starstruck when I met the superstar couple, who I thought were the nicest people. Demi actually made an extra effort to talk with me and some of my teammates. I think she had just finished the G.I. Jane movie because her head was still shaven and she was wearing a bandana. I thought she was so badass!

  Once the trays of appetizers and special food started to pass by, all I could think about was how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since midday when I munched on a Rice Krispies bar that I’d snuck into my dorm room. It was already around ten and my tummy was rumbling. I was cautious and only ate a small serving of plain grilled chicken with some vegetables because I knew I would be back in the gym in the morning.