DOMINIQUE MOCEANU

I realized I was the one doing all the training, earning the money, and my parents were living off of me.

My parents didn't know anything about collegiate scholarships, so they had accepted the national team training stipend, the monthly stipend that I received after making the national team, so I was ineligible for NCAA eligibility anyway.

My husband and I believe that if you treat a child well and nurture his talent and physical ability, in a healthy environment, the child will succeed no matter what.

The time leading up to the 1996 Olympics was the most demanding and stressful of my career. The sport I had loved so much was slowly becoming a nightmare as I trained with Bela and Marta Karolyi the summer before the Olympics.

I was so afraid to make mistakes and get reprimanded by my coaches that the joy of the sport started slipping away.

My parents enrolled me in a gymnastics class when I was three years old, and I just was drawn to gymnastics. I loved it. It was my playground, and I could run around and be free there.

Since my mother is an extremely devoted Christian Orthodox woman, she prayed a great deal and taught me how to pray.

I had this sister that was born who was given up for adoption, and I never knew it.

I don't think ethical people deal with intimidation as a method to achieve success. Undermining someone's self-esteem isn't a method to achieve success.

I prayed a lot. That's all I had in the gym; that was the thing I could turn to.

In Romania, of course, gymnastics is among the most popular sports, and my parents had a dream of escaping the Ceausescu regime and giving their child a better life. So they came to the United States and put me in gymnastics.

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.

I never, ever objected to hard work.

I have a secret sibling that I never knew existed and who was given up for adoption at birth by my parents, and she was born without legs.

When you have traveled the world, won Olympic gold, and gone through a very public court battle against your parents all by the age of seventeen, surprises don't come easy.

In the end, you have to forgive in order to heal and move forward with your life. For people who hurt you very deeply, you don't have to forgive them for their sake but for your sake, so that you can move forward and have a healthier and happier life.

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.

I was 26 years old when I found out that I had a sister who I never knew existed.

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.

I was raised into the Romanian Orthodox culture by my parents, and most notably my mother, who is a profoundly religious and spiritual woman.

I can barely recall a single holiday when my father didn't make a scene or create some kind of chaos. We were always walking on eggshells.

Standing on the podium at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and receiving a gold medal was the crowning jewel in a successful gymnastics career and, most certainly, the confirmation that my parents' sacrifices were not in vain.

My mom always knew I would be able to take care of myself, but my dad was afraid.

I don't mind sacrifice. I don't mind discipline. But a good coach allows people to blossom. I've seen that. I didn't have it.

Training with Bela and Marta Karolyi took the joy out of the Olympics for me. I look back and feel there was a lot of verbal and physical abuse. For years, I felt it was my problem.