Dominique Moceanu
Dominique Moceanu
Dominique Helena Moceanu is a retired Romanian American gymnast. She was a member of the gold-medal-winning United States women's gymnastics teamat the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGymnast
Date of Birth30 September 1981
CityLos Angeles, CA
CountryUnited States of America
felt good gymnastics left people
I thought, 'Why am I not out there? I can still do this.' I felt I still had a lot of good gymnastics left in me that people didn't get to see.
dad knew mom
My mom always knew I would be able to take care of myself, but my dad was afraid.
compete good hungry junior national titles won worried
I was very hungry to compete internationally when I was 10 years old, and I was good enough to compete, so that part never made me afraid or worried at all. When I was at my peak, around 12 and 13, I won my junior national and senior national titles back to back.
awkward bowl brown classes feeling gym haircut huge kid street tiniest worry
I was awkward-looking with huge brown eyes, dark brown, pencil-straight hair styled into an old-school Romanian bowl haircut from the 1980s. And I was very, very small. I was always the tiniest kid on my street and in my classes at school... The gym was the one place I didn't have to worry about feeling awkward for being so petite.
belittle figures gymnastics male scream sports watch
Gymnastics is the greatest sport in the world, and one of the hardest, but we have to watch out for domineering male figures who try to belittle and scream at young girls.
forced ready retirement
I was forced out of the sport into retirement through injuries. I wasn't ready to leave.
orthodox profoundly raised religious spiritual
I was raised into the Romanian Orthodox culture by my parents, and most notably my mother, who is a profoundly religious and spiritual woman.
bend injured leg olympic
I got injured at the Olympic Trials in 2000. I could not jump. I could not walk on my leg properly. I couldn't bend my knee. I couldn't straighten it.
allowing asking control felt financial freedom learning needed questions start within
My father wasn't allowing me control and the financial freedom that I was asking for. I was 17, about to be 18 within a year, so I started asking more questions because I felt that I needed to start learning about those things.
believe gymnastics opportunity
It's human nature to be timid in the face of obstacles, but I have learned to believe that challenges are opportunities for genius to shine. In order to feel alive, we have to accomplish things that we once believed we could not.
years found
I was 26 years old when I found out that I had a sister who I never knew existed,
christian mother taught
Since my mother is an extremely devoted Christian Orthodox woman, she prayed a great deal and taught me how to pray.
years parent gold
In my very first interview, at nine years old, I said I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist. That was the first time I said it out loud in front of somebody other than my parents.
teaching athlete healthy
We need to educate our elite coaches more and have a better approach to teaching the athletes about how to be healthy rather than berate them, humiliate them, use tactics that could scar them for life.