Top 25 Dominique Moceanu Quotes

For as long as I can remember, my mother went to church every single Sunday. She was born and raised in Romania as a person with limited means, and faith was something she could rely on – something that was free.

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.

My parents, Romanian immigrants, struggled to provide me a better life than the ones they had left in their homeland. They worked hard to give me every opportunity in life, and once I showed natural talent as a young gymnast, they spent every last penny on my training.

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.

I certainly believe that having my husband be in my life has been a tremendous blessing.

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

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

I believe you can be young and compete in gymnastics if you have a coach who is looking out for you and if there is a good gym environment where the coaches are taking care of you emotionally and physically.

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 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 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.

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.

I was able to represent my country and put on the red, white, and blue – how many people in the world get to do that? Standing on the podium with my teammates, and being the first women’s gymnastics team to win this gold medal, it was life-changing!

As a competitive gymnast, my life has always been filled with challenges that would ultimately define my future. From day one, I was taught to be prepared at all costs.

Some coaches are not educated at the elite level in health and nutrition. They’re not educated in how the body works from anatomy and physiology perspectives.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

I loved gymnastics. I was eager to compete. I was hungry to go out there and be the best in the world, and I had that determination.

I’d challenge myself to see how long I could go without a fall – on beam, I once went three weeks.

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.