This section was made since there have been numerous articles on Dominique recently.
I didn't have enough room to post them on the Nique News page, so I made this alternative
for articles only. Enjoy!! Special Thanx goes out to Julia for majority of this info, she's
a real NICE person to let me use it and please stop by her page! It's REALLY good! =]
Dominique Moceanu: A Little Tiger
Dominique Moceanu, on her own at last, is training again -- and loving it (03/16/99)
Olympic gymnast Dominique Moceanu, whose fight for legal independence
from her parents kept her away from the gym for nearly four months, plans to
make her comeback at a competition in China on April 5. "It'll be a couple of
months before I'm back in the shape I was in when I won the Goodwill Games
[last July]," the 17-year-old Moceanu says. "In 14 years of gymnastics I'd
never taken even a month off, so it's not going to be easy. But you've got to
believe and go forward if you're going to achieve your dreams."
Since December, when a Texas district judge granted a protective order against
Dominique's domineering and abusive father, Dumitru, forbidding him to speak
to her directly or come within 500 feet of her residence, school or workout
facility for one year (SI, Dec. 21, 1998), Dominique has been searching for a
place to train. In late January she moved from Houston to Orlando to begin
working out with her coach, Luminita Miscenco, at Brown's Gymnastics
Central, a facility run by Rita Brown, a former coach who owns five gyms.
Brown reportedly paid Moceanu's moving costs, bought about $15,000 worth
of new equipment and cosigned four-month leases on apartments for the
gymnast and her coach. But Moceanu, who is accustomed to training
privately, left with Miscenco after 2 1/2 weeks.
Brown says she found out that Moceanu was moving to the Olympic Training
Center in Colorado Springs when Moceanu announced the move during a
television interview. Brown says she feels "a little used" by Moceanu and
calls her "a lost little girl."
Early signs are that Moceanu is beginning to find herself again in Colorado
Springs, where she has been working out since Feb. 16. The price is certainly
right. She is not charged for room and board at the Olympic Training Center --
an important consideration, since Dumitru appears to have used Dominique's
trust fund to secure financing for a huge gym near Houston. Dominique lives
in a two-bedroom dormitory unit with Miscenco. "Things are working out
great for me here," she says. By training 6 1/2 hours a day, she has lost most
of the 15 pounds she'd added since walking out of her father's gym on Oct. 17,
and she's regaining strength and flexibility. She can already do her entire
repertoire on the balance beam, her favorite apparatus, but is struggling with
the vault and the uneven bars. "The altitude here still affects me a lot," she
says, "but once I can do my routines here, I know I'll be able to do them
anywhere."
Moceanu says she'll stay in Colorado Springs at least until September, when
she'll try to qualify at the U.S. World Team Trials -- her chief goal before the
2000 Olympics. She occasionally talks by phone to her mother, Camelia, and
her little sister, Christina, and believes that one day she and her father will
reconcile. "I know he's sad and wants to see me," Dominique says. "My mom
says he's coming around, he's changing. Time will heal everything. There's still
some hurt. Sometimes I'm lonely. But when I was young, I was taught to be
tough, and I believe if I can overcome this, I can overcome anything. I want to
prove to everyone that I can do it on my own."
Finding some balance , Embattled gymnast takes sanctuary at training complex (03/14/99)
The Rules of Life, by Dominique Moceanu.
1. Play hard.
2. Don't let people jerk you around.
3. Strive for what you believe in and don't abandon your goals and dreams.
4. Accept responsibility for everything that happens to you.
Not bad for a 17-year-old, although that last one is hard to figure. Too much
has happened to Moceanu in the past year - really since she won a gold medal
as a member of the U.S. women's gymnastics team in Atlanta in 1996 - too
much completely outside of her control.
How could she accept responsibility for exile from her family? For the fortune
her father squandered? For vicious public criticism? For the skepticism that
has greeted her comeback, the cruel words that tell her she's too old, too tall,
too fat, too out of shape to return to Olympic prominence?
How can she be responsible for where she finds herself now? She is the first
and only female gymnast living at the U.S. Olympic Complex, where she has
found rare refuge the past three weeks. It is a place where room and board are
free and there are walls and security guards and plenty of athletes who don't
give her a second thought; who don't see her as a 14-year-old pixie on the
medal platform; who thankfully don't treat her like a celebrity.
She's had enough of that, frankly.
"I have been through so much," she says, sounding more like a 25-year-old,
which is exactly how she describes herself. "It's made me grow up in a hurry. If
I haven't had a mental breakdown by now, I never will."
Training 6-7 hours a day keeps the doubt away, keeps her dreaming of a trip to
the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, where the world will hardly recognize her.
She's grown from 4-foot-4 to 5-2, and she's added 25 pounds, up to 100.
She isn't fat, just grown up. Next month she'll take a big step in her return when
she travels with Team USA to China for a competition. She's starting slowly,
limiting herself to a balance beam routine.
But it will be a start.
She's still working her way back from a four-month break, which started in
October when she left home, charging her father Dumitru with squandering
most of her money in a gymnasium in Texas, with slapping her on occasion,
and with discussing a possible murder contract against her female coach and a
male adviser.
Her father claimed she was involved with the man, and Moceanu found
herself, "in the same category as Monica Lewinsky. The difference is, she did
those things. I didn't."
Dominique won a protective order keeping her father away until at least
December, and now the only member of her family that she keeps in touch with
is her mother, Camelia.
Through Camelia, Dominique sends her love to younger sister Christina, who
turns 10 this year.
Like Dominique, Christina is a gymnast. Like Dominique, Christina's career is
being shaped by Dumitru, a former Romanian Junior National Team member.
"Everything is going to be OK for her," Dominique said. "People learn from
their mistakes. Maybe he (Dumitru) sees things a lot differently now.
"I've talked to my mom about it, and it seems like he's calmed down a lot. I
think my sister is going to be fine. The toughest part is that we can't see each
other. I love her to death."
Family problems haven't been Moceanu's only concern of late. Last month
USA Today reported that she was nearly $29,000 in debt to gymnastics coach
Rita Brown of Orlando, while her attorney, Ellen Yarrell, claimed that Moceanu,
"doesn't have any money left," of the nearly $2.5 million she earned since
turning professional at age 10.
More recent reports have cleared up the debt to Brown, and Moceanu says
the story was, "just a big misunderstanding. All of a sudden it was all blown
up, and on the cover of USA Today. My CPA and attorney are taking care of
all that. I'm just focusing on what I can control."
That means what happens in the gym. She silenced many of her critics, and
proved something to herself, when she won the all-around championship at
the Goodwill Games last summer. She's been helped by the return of her former
coach, Luminita Miscenco, and by an age requirement of 16 for gymnasts,
which means if she reaches Sydney at age 18 she won't be old by the new
Olympic standard.
"When you grow up in the sport, you take it for granted, you don't always
enjoy what you're doing," she said. "Now I'm doing it because I know if I
didn't, I'd look back and wonder about what could have been."
So add one more line to the rules of life. Make it read, no regrets.
Moceanu begins to put her life back together (03/12/99)
COLORADO SPRINGS -- This is life as a 17-year-old adult.
Rapid-fire questions that have absolutely nothing to do with gymnastics, the
sport that thrust Dominique Moceanu onto this stage in the first place.
Questions about her father, the man she says threatened to have her coach
deported, the man she ran away from Oct. 18, the man she says left her no
choice but to "divorce" her family in a lawsuit settled 10 days later.
Questions a remarkably composed Moceanu -- legally an adult as a result of
Houston State Judge John Montgomery's decision -- will continue to face now
that she has moved to Colorado Springs to train for the 2000 Olympic Games in
Sydney, Australia.
"I know that my life has never been normal, and it might not ever be,"
Moceanu said Thursday at the United States Olympic Complex. "I've been
through it all. Nothing shocks me. It's nothing new to me."
Ten inches taller than she was as a 14-year-old gold medalist at the 1996
Olympic Games, the 5-foot-2 high-school senior said returning to gymnastics
offers solace.
"I've been through a lot, had a lot of breakdowns," she said.
When the legal dust cleared, Moceanu made the decision to compete again.
She plans to live in Colorado Springs until the 2000 Olympics. She will compete
April 5 in China with Team USA.
"I didn't want to look back in a couple of years and say, 'Why didn't I give it a
shot,"' she said. "I didn't want to be watching the Olympics saying, 'I could
have been there"'
Moceanu is training more than 6 hours a day with coach Luminita Miscenco,
the coach her father, Dumitru Moceanu, fired in October.
"I knew she was the one who could get me to the top because she got me
there in the first place," Moceanu said. "Hopefully, the Olympics will be a
great historic moment for me again."
She made history in 1996, becoming the youngest U.S. gymnast to win a gold
medal when the U.S. captured the team gold. As a result, she became the
youngest athlete to be pictured on a Wheaties cereal box when she posed with
the team. But a four-month hiatus has taken its toll.
"I never even took a month off in 14 years of gymnastics, so in four months,
you can lose a lot," she said. "But I think in three months I should have all my
routines down."
Adjusting to life on her own could take longer.
"There are a lot of things that you have to be responsible for when you are an
adult," Moceanu said. "You're making decisions you never had to make
before, financially and for yourself."
Her relationship with her father, currently non-existent as he is forbidden to
see her or talk to her, can be repaired, she said.
"Time will heal everything," Moceanu said. "I talked to my mom, and she said
he's calmed down a lot, he's changed."
She said she will try to live as normal a life as possible.
"I like to go shopping, do normal girls stuff," she said. "I like to go to the
movies."
"I haven't seen one in forever."
At 17, Taking Her Chances on Maturity (03/07/99)
Dominique Moceanu hears people talking: "The girl is fat. She's out of shape.
She'll never make it back."
She hears these voices when she goes to the gym. Four months is a lifetime
when you're 17.
"People say, 'Why didn't you train?' but I said, 'Why do you think?' "
Moceanu blurted. "I couldn't focus. I felt the world on my shoulders. I didn't
want to go in there and hurt myself."
She took four months off, not just to avoid the beam and the mat, but to
survive a vicious public scandal. Last October, Moceanu left home after her
father, Dumitru Moceanu, was suspected of discussing a possible hit against
her female coach and a male adviser, claiming she was involved with the man.
"The man is a family friend, with a wife and a child," Moceanu said the other
day. "His family was helping me when I had problems with my father. I
remember thinking at one point, 'They've got me in the same category as
Monica Lewinsky.' It's the climate of the times. Everybody is so cynical."
"There's a big difference, though," Moceanu added. "Monica and the
President did those things, but I never even kissed anybody. I've never had a
boyfriend."
Moceanu's father, who denied the allegations that he contemplated a hit, has
been ordered to avoid all contact with his daughter at least until next October.
"I have been through so much," Dominique Moceanu said.
She is living in Colorado Springs in a dormitory room provided by the United
States Olympic Committee. She has gone back to the gym with a different body
than the slender child who was part of the gold-medal American gymnastics
team at the 1996 Summer Games.
In jeans and a sweater, wearing makeup, Moceanu comes off as more mature
than the 25-year-old Lewinsky, whose interview Moceanu watched carefully
Wednesday night. Moceanu described Lewinsky as "an airhead" and said she
will survive her own hideous exposure to the American gossip machine.
"It's made me grow up in a hurry," she said, her voice lower than the standard
disassociated singsong of most female gymnasts and skaters.
Moceanu has time and empathy for others. She was in New York last week to
promote the 10th Special Olympics for the mentally retarded, to be held from
June 26 through July 4 in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
At the Axelle Fine Arts Galerie in Soho, Moceanu posed with the official
poster for the games, by the artist Fabienne Delacroix, and praised the Special
Olympics, founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1969.
"These games do so much for people," Moceanu said. "They give them
dreams, they motivate them. I can relate to that because every athlete learns to
overcome injuries. I can appreciate other people's struggles more, now that I
have been through this."
She learned about pain in 1996 when she competed while recuperating from a
stress fracture in her tibia. Afterward, the gold medalists capitalized on their
celebrity, but her earnings were controlled by her father back in Houston.
Last fall, Moceanu left home, charging her father with squandering most of the
money in an ill-conceived huge gymnasium, and slapping her on occasion.
"It was never about money," Moceanu said the other day. "It was a personal
thing, between my father and me."
She said her coach and family friend were merely protecting her, when she had
no money and no experience in living on her own. She has seen her mother
and her sister.
"I tell my mom to say hello to my father from me," she said. "I cannot say what
will happen in the future, but for now the court says we cannot speak. I think
he is heartbroken. He doesn't understand. You cannot change a
father-daughter relationship. You only get one dad in your life. It's hard for
him. It's hard for all of us. But I did what I had to do."
Some people suggested she talk to a counselor, but Moceanu said, "I didn't
feel I needed it. If I haven't had a mental breakdown by now, I never will. I've
got my best friend in Houston, and she's never betrayed a trust in nine years.
It's like I said of the family that helped me: one percent of the world is all right."
"I think I'm pretty tough," she added, "but I keep waiting for it to turn positive.
I used to have a good image, a happy, bubbly person. Now I felt so sad. The
image was that I was this girl who ran away with a married man. It just killed
me. How can I explain myself? It all got twisted up. I was second-guessing
myself, but nothing I did was wrong."
After four months, Moceanu was reunited with her coach, Luminita Miscenco,
who had gone home to Romania.
"I was hurting so badly those first days in the gym," Moceanu said. "I was
just trying to get back my strength and stability."
She said she has made great progress and is training for the 2000 Summer
Games in Sydney, Australia. She has grown to be 5-feet-1-inch tall and 100
pounds, and has acquired a taste for normalcy -- half a giant muffin and a
foamy cappuccino during the interview. Moceanu insisted she can still
compete in a sport dominated by preadolescents.
"They raised the age level to 16," she said. "The competition will be older. You
start too young, you wind up hating it."
And even if the maturity of her body could be a negative, Dominique
Moceanu said, "I feel I can handle responsibility. I'm going to go to college,
maybe go into broadcasting or acting, maybe work with computers. I feel I can
live with adversity. If I can get through this, I can get through anything."
Colorado setting good for Moceanu (02/20/99)
By Cathy Harasta, The Dallas Morning News
Gymnast Dominique Moceanu's odyssey for independence began in a
Houston courtroom last fall.
But since Oct. 28, when she won her bid for legal adult status, Moceanu, 17,
apparently had found little peace and next to nothing in the way of an
appropriate training environment. Until now.
This week, Moceanu became a resident of the U.S. Olympic Training Center in
Colorado Springs, Colo. After trying to train in Houston and Florida, she
qualified for the resident program under a ``short-term training special,'' said
Gail Dent, the U.S. Olympic Committee's assistant director for media services.
Maybe Moceanu is home free, home at last.
The training center's structured lifestyle should work in Moceanu's favor. No
surrogate family could better serve her than athletes with similar goals. The
sportsmen and sportswomen in residence reinforce each other's dedication.
``It's a good setting for her,'' said Peter Kormann, the U.S. men's gymnastics
team coordinator. ``She has been at a few gyms.''
Changing gyms and moving from state to state no doubt took a lot out of
Moceanu, the all-around gold medalist at the Goodwill Games in July.
USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi said the new setting should be
agreeable for Moceanu and her coach, Luminita Miscenco.
``The most important thing for Dominique and Luminita is that they believe
they now are in the best place for them,'' Colarossi said. ``I know what
Dominique is trying to do now is put the past stuff behind her. It has been
hard on her.''
With the help of friends and Miscenco, Moceanu fled her parents' Houston
home in October. At issue were millions of dollars Moceanu said she had
earned but that her father, Dumitru, had misspent. A district court in December
ordered him to stay away from his daughter.
Dominique could not be reached for comment.
Colarossi said she probably has missed too much training to be ready to
compete in the Visa American Cup in St. Petersburg, Fla., beginning March 4.
Still, her routine at the training center will keep her crossing paths with
gymnasts bound for the American Cup one of the year's most elite meets. Just
the exposure to the Olympic setting and the nation's most committed gymnasts
can't help but keep Moceanu in the proper frame of mind.
``We train for seven or eight hours a day,'' said reigning U.S. men's champion
Blaine Wilson, who has lived at the center for just more than a year. ``We get
to hang out with the other athletes. It's similar to college life, living in the
dorm.''
He said he knew Moceanu had moved into the complex, but he had not had a
chance to talk with her because he had the flu.
Last August, Wilson joined Kurt Thomas of Plano as the only other American
man to have won three consecutive national championships in the last 30
years. Wilson, gold medalist at the last two Visa American Cups, will compete
in the upcoming edition. Colarossi said he expects 20 nations at the Cup.
The Cup kicks off a challenging stretch. The Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg,
Canada, and the World Championships in Tianjin, China, come up later this
year. The fall of 2000 features the Sydney Olympics.
Moceanu, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist, appears to have found a home. For
now, more than anything else, she needs to rub elbows with gymnasts such as
Wilson. They have not come from the same recent turmoil, but they share an
Olympic destination.
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