Dominique Moceanu couldn't sleep. So what else was new?
She hadn't slept in days. She had hardly any money in her purse, just a few changes of clothes thrown into an overnight bag and nowhere to go. She stood there, scared, peeking through the curtains of a motel room that some friends rented for her under a false name.
"Is that him?" she thought to herself as a car that looked like her father's slowly rolled through the parking lot. "Ohmigod, it's him."
She nervously shut the curtains, sat down on the edge of the bed in the dark room and buried her face in her hands, crying uncontrollably. Her stomach churned, and she couldn't keep her hands from shaking.
Night after night, the scene never changed; only the motel rooms did. As she ran for personal freedom and a say in her own life, the world that once seemed to be hers was crashing down on Moceanu's tiny shoulders.
"I was terrified of my own father," Moceanu said. "That was the saddest part. I had had enough. I was so tired of everything. All I ever wanted to be was a daddy's little girl, but I never could."
She was a world-class gymnast, a gold-medal winner, a superstar with the brightest and happiest of personalities. But for years she had suffered under a secret torment until she simply could not take it anymore.
Of all the athletes who will face the nation's media this weekend at the United States Olympic Committee Media Summit, none figures to be grilled and prodded more than this beautiful 18-year-old gymnast whose ugly tale of oppression and misguided ambition spun out of control in October 1998.
Moceanu's successful lawsuit for emancipation from her parents made worldwide headlines and made her dream of making the 2000 Olympic Team a long shot. But she will be here today, taller and so much different than before, but ready to be strong.
Shoulders back, chin up. We've seen the classic gymnast's pose before, but on Moceanu it no longer is something done only for judges. It has become a symbol for her life. Come on, world, take your best shot.
Her story was a complex one that never seemed to end. As reports about Moceanu's personal life spun out of control, every time she turned on the TV there were more images of her standing in a Houston courtroom fighting back tears and solemnly taking a stand against the father whom deep down she loved.
"I do love him," Moceanu said, "but it was hard liking the things that happened. I loved gymnastics, and I still do. It's my whole life. It's all I want. But he acted like I was a machine. I know in his heart he's good, and he had good intentions, but things just got out of hand."
Before the 1996 Games, during which Moceanu helped lead the United States to its first-ever team gold medal in gymnastics, the pressure heaped upon her by her parents grew outrageous. She smiled and struck the happy, confident pose for the judges, but everything she did was monitored closely and critiqued.
Where she went. What she ate. How she trained. Her father screened telephone calls and ridiculed her.
"Whenever I was allowed to leave the house, sometimes my father would send my mother to follow me to make sure no one corrupted my mind," she said. "I was like, `Guys, I want the gold medal more than anyone, but I want to have a life, too.' "
After the Games, the pressures did not subside as Moceanu had hoped. During a post-Olympic tour, she earned more than $100,000 doing gymnastics exhibitions with the "Magnificent Seven." But she knew little of the great sums of money she was earning, knowing only that her father controlled everything to the point that she said he forged her name on numerous endorsement contracts.
"Some (Olympic teammates) were talking about investing in stock with the money they were earning, and I was like, `What's stock?' " she said. "I was totally in the dark."
With his daughter's money, Dumitru Moceanu financed a 75,000-square-foot gym in northeast Houston. He continued to push his daughter to train and make appearances and endorsements.
During the trial for emancipation, testimony revealed that Dumitru Moceanu physically abused Dominique and squandered much of the money she had earned. The gym ultimately closed.
Later, after Dominique rented a small apartment near Spring High School, Dumitru Moceanu continued to telephone his daughter asking for forgiveness and for her to come home. Often, he would wait outside her high school and confront her or follow her to the apartment in his car.
A restraining order was placed against Dumitru Moceanu and police later found cause to investigate him for a murder-for-hire plot against one of the friends who helped Dominique run away and then-coach Luminita Miscenco. The investigation and restraining order eventually were dropped, but trying to find her way to Sydney, Moceanu hopped from gym to gym and coach to coach, anguishing about the bold strike for freedom she had made.
She went from Orlando, Fla., to Colorado Springs, Colo., to Cincinnati, where she now trains with 1996 Olympic coach Mary Lee Tracy.
"The dream began so innocently, but the innocence vanished," Moceanu said. "My life was twisted and split into all these pieces." Now, Moceanu knows what to expect this weekend. More than 300 members of the media from across the United States and several other nations will want to know more. They'll want to dissect the story, delve into the past and talk about all those agonizing memories.
But Moceanu says its time for everyone to move on. Her Olympic dream for 2000 is alive and well despite it all. She wants to stand there in front of the cameras again and make a stand.
Look out, world -- Dominique Moceanu is in the best shape she's been in since winning the Goodwill Games all-around gold in 1998.
After so many setbacks and not training for months because of the ordeal with her family, Moceanu now is looked upon by USA Gymnastics officials as a legitimate contender to make another Olympic team.
This time, she's doing it for herself. This time, she is nearly a foot taller than the pixie who captured the world's imagination in 1996. And how could she not grow up in so many other ways, too?
Moceanu agreed to talk about her troubled past for this space only because she wants to put it to rest once and for all.
"I'm not going to discuss it anymore because it's a chapter that is over," she said. "It's a closed subject. I've moved on, and I hope everybody else can respect that and move on, too. My whole life right now is about reaching the next dream. My whole focus right now is on making it to Sydney. It's all I live for."
Moceanu's mother, Camelia, and sister, Christina, have moved into an apartment with her in Cincinnati. She has begun rebuilding her relationship with her father and says Dumitru has been supportive and respectful of her right to live and train on different terms than in 1996.
She visits Dumitru on trips back to Houston, but mostly she speaks with him by telephone, and only rarely does the subject matter turn to gymnastics.
"Our relationship is kind of in neutral right now," she said. "He's letting me live and train. He's really been great about it. You know, neither of us can change what has happened, but we're letting it be. When this is all over, I want him back the way I know he can be. That will be my next goal."
Until then, her present dream is all she wants to talk about. Only three months ago, Moceanu was considered a long shot to make the team. But under Tracy's guidance, she has blossomed into what team coordinator Bela Karolyi has called "a real contender."
"Proving people wrong just feels so good," Moceanu said. "I know a lot of people thought I didn't have a chance after everything that happened. They wrote me off. But just being there on the Olympic team one last time would be the perfect end to the story. I want to leave on a good note. It's so much harder when you get older and you grow up. But you know, I'm pretty tough."
She has had to be.
© John Lopez, Houston Chronicle
