It was 1996, and the world watched in awe as the U.S. Women’s Olympic Team took home the gold medal — a first for the women’s team. And as a member of the Magnificent Seven (as they were affectionately called), gymnast Dominique Moceanu won the hearts of fans everywhere with her overall Olympic performance and powerhouse personality. Years later, the former gymnast is still as active as ever, running the Dominique Moceanu Gymnastics Center and prepping for the birth of her baby. We spoke to Dominique about the rigors of this popular sport, what it truly takes to be a champion, and how she’ll support her child’s athletic aspirations — but she’s really hoping Baby will be a budding gymnast.
Dominique, how has your pregnancy been so far?
I’m feeling really good. I’m in my third trimester; the first trimester was rough due to morning sickness. And actually it wasn’t just morning sickness; it was morning, noon, and night. And then I got sick twice. So I had the flu, and I couldn’t eat for a full day, and then I had an ear infection. That’s over with, and then my second and third trimesters have been good.
And you’re having…
We’re having a little girl. We are playing with the names but nothing is set in stone. We’re just going to wait and see the personality of the baby when she’s born. And if we have a name right before the baby comes, then we’ll consider it.
Let’s talk about your history as a gymnast.
I began gymnastics when I was 3-years-old. My parents immigrated to this country from Romania. They were born and raised there, and gymnastics was always a sport that they loved to watch. And my mom was Nadia Comaneci’s age, so she grew up watching her and just loved the sport.
My parents put me in it here when they came to the United States. They put me in gymnastics when I was in Chicago at the time. And I just really loved it. I had a lot of energy and I was very small. My parents are short people, so I fit in the gymnastics world pretty well! [laughs] My parents sacrificed for my gymnastics. They were willing to do anything for my gymnastics, even if it meant getting up at six in the morning and bringing me to the gym. They were so devoted to my gymnastics, and they saw talent as I started getting a few years into the sport,
I loved to be in the gym all day long as a child and to this day, too. That’s where my passion really started. I was a little toddler and this was my Playland, where I felt the most comfortable. But it was hard because they started off really rough here. They didn’t have much when they came to this country.
And gymnastics can be an expensive sport.
Right, because gymnastics is an elite sport. It wasn’t easy not only financially, but for me as a kid. My parents aw how much I was by myself, and I was lonely. I was also the odd kid with European parents who ate weird foods. I had a boy cut; my hair was really short and very Romanian! [laughs] I always felt that I stood out, and it was hard for me to make friends. So gymnastics was my safe place where I felt comfortable and I knew that I was good at something.
How many hours did you train when you were younger?
When I was younger, I was in the gym already at eight years old, eight hours a day. I’d go to school in the morning. I would start out at the gym from 6:00-9:00 am, then go to school from 9:00 am – 2:00 pm, and then back in the gym from 4:00-8:00 pm. It was rigorous but it’s normal training with the aspiration of going to the Olympics, because they saw a new talent, very young. My parents saw in me that I had the potential to go really far. And a lot of the coaches that have been coaching me told them that they saw something special and that I could go really far in the sport if I had the desire to do so. My parents were willing to do whatever it took if I loved it and that I was going to succeed and excel.
The local news came out to my gym club when I was in Tampa, Florida. I was 9-years-old and they came to interview me as a 1996 Olympic hopeful. That was the first time I’d ever been interviewed on TV and it was the first time I said I wanted to go to the Olympics. That was when it started to become more of a reality, a realistic dream that I could do someday.
I would think with gymnastics, you either love it or you don’t.
That’s true and I loved all of it. During the time I was training, I was doing competitions and I was pretty good at them. I hadn’t reached the elite level yet, so I was put at the levels right below it, and I was doing really well. I was succeeding. Some people stay at level six or level seven or eight for a year or two at a time. I was skipping through those levels really quickly because I outscored the score that I needed to to move to the next level. So I was already ahead of the game at that point, and I became a junior elite at 10 years old.
And we should mention the 1996 Olympics, too.
[laughs] We came out very successful. My team and I made history. Not only was it in the United States, but it was the Centennial Olympic Games. Our U.S. women’s team had never won Olympic gold. There was so much riding on that Olympic Games, and I was the youngest member of the team and the youngest female gymnast ever to win gold.
But it was more than that. I was a Romanian American. We had the two all American blonde hair, blue eyed girls. We had veterans. We had three girls that were at the ninth two Olympics coming back for this one. So we had four veterans on the team and it was just such an amazing mix. And we all were so dedicated. We eat, breathe, sleep gymnastics and our dream finally came together. And to be so young to experience it, I think it was a little overwhelming at the time. I didn’t realize the magnitude of what we had accomplished until years later. At the time, I was just so worried about getting my routines and making sure that I was eating properly,
I always went into competitions wanting to win, right? So going in and then actually winning with the team was just something that I had in my mind. There was no failure but obviously a lot of hard work, a lot of years of dedication, and a lot of stress. It wasn’t an easy road. I mean, on TV, it looks very easy, but the work that goes behind it, the day in and day out effort, the daily training, the things you put your body and your mind through — In the end, it definitely is worth it, but you have to realize how much it actually takes out of you to accomplish something, like that.
And I would imagine that you have to give up a lot of things, too.
I had to give up going to homecomings and proms. I was a freshman in high school when I went to the Olympics. I missed going to regular school; I homeschooled that year. Sometimes you have to sacrifice one thing to get another.
So what was your forte at the Olympics?
I was an all around gymnast. What I really loved the most was probably the balance beam and the floor too. I could show my artistic side and my bubbly personality on those events more than I could on the vault. Vault is a powerful event where you can show your power and your grace and on bars, your elegance and your lines. You can’t see the person actually performing in an artistic way.
But when we got the gold, I just remember walking on that podium breathing such a sigh of relief. We actually did it, and the pressure was off. Whatever happened after that was just icing on the cake. I felt so proud to do it in front of our country, too, and knowing everything that we went through to get there. It was just so special because we were the first team to do it, and that’s always going to be a part of history. It really made a lot of kids love the sport afterwards and a lot of gym owners would come to us and say, “Thank you for doing what you did; our gym is just so full of gymnasts that are so excited about the sport.” I think our sport needed that that was really something special.
What happened after the Olympics?
We were living like rock stars for a while. We were touring; it was my first experience on a tour bus. The seven of us went on tour along with some other Olympians, and it was the time of our lives. We really bonded as a team more than ever on the tour, because it was low stress, just perform. We would do shows and we got to go to over 100 cities. I came home and there was a big party for me. All my friends from school came, and they had a big Welcome Back banner.
After winning at the Olympics, did you set your sights on the next one?
I was just thinking of relaxing at that point, because I reached my goal. And most gymnasts who finally get to the Olympics, they can’t wait to be done because there’s just so much stress and so much politics, and it’s so difficult to stay at the top for a really long time, because a lot of the coaches will burn you out. And I felt burned out at that time. I just wanted to have fun. I didn’t want to even be in the gym for a while. I just wanted to perform low stress, and I wanted to eat normally. I never had a soda or a carbonated drink until after the Olympics. I just wanted to be a kid. I would dream of what cereals I would be eating after the Olympics.
Does it really have to be that restrictive?
I think obviously our coaches made it worse than it could have been. It shouldn’t have been that demanding or stressful. We should have been able to do what we wanted — we were working out so many hours a day. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but it was. And I think for a while it was really tough on me, because I love food. Unfortunately, it became a sacrifice for the family too, because if I wasn’t allowed to eat bread and pasta, the family had to cut back on that stuff, too. We all ate healthy, but I didn’t want to deprive the whole family. But essentially, it was all me. My family would get to eat what they wanted.
I would hide food under my bunk bed and then I would just eat it when I wanted to. But I think a lot of the gymnasts ended up sneaking food when they were young because they had coaches who were very obsessed with weight and image and things like that, unfortunately, as part of our sport. But it’s not all negative — there are some coaches out there who are good about it, that teach their gymnasts how to eat properly instead of saying, “No, you can’t eat that.”
So you’re in school now.
Yes! I’m a full time student and I’m majoring in Business Management. I go to a private Jesuit university by my house, and I have nine classes to go before I graduate. I cannot wait! I pushed myself to go through school this semester, just so that I could take the spring off and take care of the baby. I really want to be dedicated to her and not try to split myself up too much.
Let’s talk about your hubby, Mike.
Aww. I met Mike in 1994 when we were both junior gymnasts competing at the national championship. He competed for Ohio State University, and he majored in molecular genetics. He went off to medical school and became a surgeon, but I met him when we were both competing at the national championships as juniors.
Back then, there was nothing romantic because we were both kids. I was 12 and he was 16. One time, he was just having a rough meet, so he stepped out to get away from it all. He asked how I was doing and I’m like, “How are you doing?”I told him to hang in there, and he was probably looking at me like I was some kind of little kid but he didn’t know that I had just won the competition.
After that, we became pen pals throughout the years, and then lost touch. I went to the Olympics, and he went off to college and did his thing, and then we reunited again. I had just stopped gymnastics, and he had just stopped because he was going to medical school, and we pretty much just hung out together and had a great time. I was still living in Houston, Texas and he was living in Cleveland, Ohio. We did the long distance thing for a while, and I was like, “I’m young once — let’s see if it’s gonna work.” We took a chance, and it worked! We got married on November 4, 2000 in Houston, Texas, and now Baby’s on the way.
How has the pregnancy been?
I struggled during the first three months because I was sick a lot. I couldn’t eat much and I just felt nauseous all the time. It’s been much better. When you first feel those flutters, it’s just such an amazing feeling. At first I couldn’t make out what it was, and then I couldn’t wait to tell Mike what was going on in there. She’s so active now — I think she’s doing flips in there!.
Has it been challenging to deal with the changes that occur during pregnancy when the focus has been on size and weight in gymnastics?
It’s pretty amazing to see the transformation of my body, because for so long, I was so conscious of how I looked in gymnastics. But I just let go of all that, and I realized I need to be healthy for me and my baby, and whatever the baby is craving, I’m going to give it to her. I’ve been dedicated to being healthy and satisfying those cravings, but if I want to have ice cream, I’m going to have a bowl of ice cream at night. I’m not depriving myself. And I know that as soon as the baby comes up, I can work out and I can be healthy, and I’m going to do it the healthy way.
And if the baby shows Olympic aspirations…
I’m all for it. I definitely want to put her in it when she’s young, because she can learn coordination and flexibility. And I think gymnastics is a good base for any sport you do. So in the beginning, we’ll let her play around, have fun with it. If she likes it, that’s great and if she doesn’t, that’s fine, too. I want to let her be a kid, and to protect her from some of the things that maybe hurt me when I was growing up in school that my parents weren’t aware of or they didn’t know any better.
So we’ll see what happens. And if gymnastics is not her thing, then we’ll try tennis or something else, But whatever sport it is, whatever she wants, we’re down for it.