Off Balance: A Memoir (17 page)

For some reason, as much as I felt that Bela and Marta treated me with disdain and lack of respect, I kept trying to gain their approval. I would look at Bela when he was enraged or disgusted with me and I couldn’t help but think of Tata. They were so similar in some ways, how their tempers would flare over simple things. I feared Bela like I feared Tata, yet I still tried to please both of them, even when I knew deep down they’d rarely be satisfied with what I’d done or if they were, they’d rarely give any praise. I can’t remember a single time that the Karolyis or Tata ever uttered the simple words “I’m proud of you.” Later, of course, I’d learn from Mama that the Karolyis had told them that words of praise would limit my progress. They once even asked Janice to remove herself from the gym for complimenting one of the other gymnasts on a job well done. In so many ways, this captures their philosophy—a philosophy that almost destroyed me.

I resented that added pressure of walking on eggshells at the gym, trying not to upset Bela. At times, I envied the relationships I saw between other gymnasts with their coaches at competitions. I remembered what it was like to have someone who demanded everything from me but who also believed in me and made me feel good about myself. I wanted that security and support back in my corner. Here I was, heading into the Olympic Games, feeling less confident than ever before with coaches making sure I knew I wasn’t
that
good.

To make matters worse, I was starting to suffer from chronic sharp leg pains stemming from my right shin. It had been an issue
for months and worsened leading up to the US National Championships in Knoxville in June. It was obvious that my leg wasn’t right, and it was affecting my performances, but the Karolyis did not alter my training in response to my injury. I had seen them push other hurt gymnasts. I worked up the nerve to tell Bela and Marta a few separate times that I was really hurting and that I knew something was wrong with my leg. They seemed to dismiss me each time, muttering under their breath and making sour faces, making me feel like I was faking my injury. They told me there wasn’t anything
“really”
wrong with me. By then, my self-esteem had been chipped away significantly, and I actually started thinking that they knew me better than I knew myself, even though, in truth, they barely knew me at all.

During US Nationals podium training (the “official” practice before the competition begins) my leg was hurting so badly I had to literally grit my teeth to stop from crying out at each turn, especially on vault, beam, and floor. I did everything I could to fight back tears. I didn’t want to show weakness to Bela and Marta. A few times I winced in pain, which I knew would get me into trouble. “Stop making faces,” they would call out, coldly. During floor warm-ups, I fell, landing facefirst onto the mat on my first and fairly easy pass. My leg completely lacked the stability it normally had, and I felt it could give out on me at any time.
How on earth am I going to run down the vault runway?
was all I kept thinking. I could barely put pressure on my right leg in a turn, how was I going to sprint down the vault runway, much less stick a landing?

An hour before I was to leave for the competitive arena, Bela and Marta called my parents and me into their hotel room for an impromptu “parent-coach meeting.” I couldn’t remember them holding such a meeting before, and they certainly never included me in any discussion about my training, so I had no idea what this would be all about. Based on past experiences with other kinds of “parent-coach meetings,” I was terrified.

“Do you
want
to compete?” Bela asked me, with Marta, Tata, and Mama standing behind him staring quietly, awaiting my response.

I just stared back at Bela. He rarely asked my input or opinion on anything and now, an hour before the US Nationals, he was asking me if I wanted to compete. Fourteen-year-old me did not recognize the malicious sarcasm, either. I thought it was some kind of trick question, and I didn’t know how to answer. I wanted to say what he wanted to hear, but I was so confused that I just looked at him and then at my parents and back at Bela again. I finally nodded my head yes. In retrospect, I saw that it was a rhetorical question. Bela’s way of saying, “Don’t complain. You’re not really that injured, so suck it up and compete.” Of course, Bela knew I had every intention of competing and that I hadn’t complained about my injury to anyone else. As we made our way to the arena, I was so frightened—scared of the pain, scared that no one believed me about my leg, scared of falling in front of the public during the competition with the Olympics right around the corner, and scared because I knew I was trapped in a situation where I could never tell my coaches how I truly felt. I felt hopeless and alone. I prayed that the rush of adrenaline I normally got in competition would help me through the pain.

The actual event is something of a blur to me now. The pain was there, but that adrenaline kicked in and I was able to muscle through it for the most part. I ended up placing third in the All-Around. I made uncharacteristic minor mistakes on vault and uneven bars that most likely cost me the gold medal. I was disappointed, of course, yet I still felt total confidence that I would have done even better had I been healthy, and I couldn’t understand why Bela didn’t see that, too.

“That was NO GOOD, Domi. That was NO GOOD,” Bela barked at me after my uneven bars routine.

Bela’s comments, seeping with disgust, cut like a knife and
made me feel like a failure. Considering it was difficult to put my weight on my leg, I expected he’d see at least some honor in the fact that I finished my routines without any major falls and that I pushed through the injury to place third despite having to sit out the final day because my leg became unbearable.

I remember how Bela conveniently acted like he was concerned about my injury during the few fleeting moments that the television cameras were filming him on the sidelines. In truth, he was disappointed in me for my errors. It confused me at first, but I soon caught on to the game—with the cameras present, Bela did a 180 and became the animated, entertaining, and caring “you can do it” coach that everyone knew and loved.

My injury was not properly addressed even after we returned to the ranch. We were given one day’s rest after Nationals, and that Monday we were back in the gym picking up where we had left off. Kerri and I were training as usual on our compulsory floor routines that morning, and my leg pain was now severe. One day off with no treatment was clearly insufficient. The hard gray floor beneath my feet looked and felt a hundred years old, especially in contrast to the equipment at Nationals. The Karolyi floor was hard as a rock with what felt like no springs at all, which only worsened my leg pain. I didn’t know how to train through it. I felt demoralized, and Bela and Marta barely spoke to me—instead shooting me looks of disgust when I was struggling on compulsory floor that morning.

I remember Bela opened the warehouse doors of the gym that morning to try to get some fresh air to circulate. It was another sweltering hot day in New Waverly and I was sweating profusely from the workout. Bela and Marta rarely turned on the air-conditioning for our training even though it was often more than one hundred degrees with strangling humidity. My leotard was soaked through within the first few minutes of our conditioning training. I’d stand in front of the huge dusty fans to try to dry my sweat between runs on vault or floor. My face would turn beet red
and I could feel my cheeks flushed and burning. I’m not sure how we managed to not pass out from heat exhaustion.

I tried my best to make it through the workout that day, but my leg literally gave out and I collapsed. I had made it through my tumbling pass okay, but when I went on to my switch straddle dance element, I collapsed right in front of Marta, Bela, and Kerri. I realized my leg had given out during my jump—my leg was so weak that I wasn’t able to push off. Crumpled up on the ground, with streaks of pain radiating from my leg, my primary focus was fear—I was afraid of being yelled at by Bela, so I forced myself up quickly. The gym was silent. I attempted the same element and, again, I couldn’t push off of my leg properly and collapsed once more. I was afraid to make eye contact with the Karolyis, but with only one training buddy in the gym with you, it’s unavoidable.

Marta made a disgusted face and mumbled some words I couldn’t make out. I was frozen with fear, so I got up and just stood before them, staring down at the tattered gray floor. I was waiting for them to either yell at me or, worse, threaten to call Tata.

“What you doing? You playing the fool?” I remember Bela saying.

I didn’t answer. I just knew they were going to call Tata and could feel my body begin to tremble. I tried to stand perfectly still, but the trembling only got worse—especially my leg—and it was almost like it was no longer a part of my body.

Marta purposefully walked toward me and silently squeezed the back of my neck, digging her fingers in tightly, as she had often done when she was upset with me, and began pushing me toward her office door. She was talking as we made our way to her office, but my head was spinning and I couldn’t concentrate on what she was saying. I was trying to read Bela’s expression to see if he was going to call Tata.

“Let’s call your parents. Maybe your leg is broken!” Marta announced loudly.

I think back now at this whole scene and I can’t believe how
frightened I was of those five words,
“I’m gonna call your parents.”
The Karolyis always threatened me with it, and it never failed to scare the crap out of me. I really wasn’t sure who I feared more, Tata or Bela, but I knew that having the
two
of them mad at me at the same time was lethal. By then, I was slightly less afraid of Marta. I had become one of her favorite beam workers, so, at times, she gave me the benefit of the doubt and was a little softer on me than she had been before.

The X-ray and MRI revealed a four-centimeter stress fracture in my right tibia—five weeks before the Olympic Games. Even though I knew it had been getting progressively worse, my heart sank with the news of a fracture. It’s the kind of news that smashes Olympic dreams. I was horrified and I panicked, afraid that I wouldn’t be healed in time to compete at the Olympics. I was relieved to finally get treatment for my leg, but as I sat out conditioning on the sidelines, I was going crazy seeing the days tick away and the Games inching closer. I eventually trained on bars, skipping my dismounts to limit the pounding on my leg, and I had to stop vaulting and floor exercise altogether for a couple of weeks. I rode the stationary bike for endurance training.

At first, I bought in to Bela’s blame game and blamed myself for being injured, as if
I
had done something to cause the fracture. But once I really thought about it, I realized I had done
exactly
what my coaches had told me to do from the moment I woke each morning to the moment I went to bed. I was mad at myself for not being more persistent and insisting that they examine and treat my leg when I first told them something was wrong. I know from years in my sport that next to prevention, quick treatment is key to staying healthy. If you pay attention to the warning signs, you can usually avoid subsequent, more serious injuries from overtraining and overuse. But open communication, and especially talk of injury, was never permitted at the Karolyi gym.

I was still injured and unable to compete at Olympic Trials in
Boston in mid-June. Fortunately, I was able to petition and earn a spot on the 1996 Olympic team based on my scores from Nationals. I was eager to learn more about the other five gymnasts who would be joining me and Kerri on the 1996 Olympic team, which would eventually be dubbed “the Magnificent Seven.”

Shannon Miller, the most decorated gymnast in US history, ended up winning the All-Around at US Nationals that year. Like me, she was injured for Olympic Trials and also used those scores to petition onto the Olympic team. I didn’t know Shannon well at the time. She was nineteen years old, five years older than me, and had world titles, Olympic medals, and years of experience under her belt. She had been my main competition at Nationals and the media immediately ran with the “rivalry” angle that would continue to pit us against each other for years to come. I remember being taken aback by Shannon’s tendency to openly cry during her practices. She was such a fierce and steely competitor at meets that it caught me by surprise. I was mesmerized, watching her tears flow freely while her personal coach continued working with her. I admired that she didn’t feel the need to hide her emotion during practices. I knew exactly how she felt, wanting to cry during practice at times, but I remember thinking,
If I ever did that, I’d be in big trouble!
Shannon was living proof that showing emotion didn’t mean you were weak or less of an athlete—she has won more Olympic and World gymnastics medals combined than any other US male or female gymnast
ever
.

Jaycie Phelps, who placed second in the All-Around at the National Championships, was immediately thrown into the mix with the rest of us vying for one of the seven spots on the US Olympic team. Her blue eyes, bouncy blond ponytail, brick abs, and gorgeous toe-point on the uneven bars made her presence hard to miss on the floor. Out of superstition, I would not watch any of my competitors at meets until I completed my own events, so I didn’t get to see Jaycie’s routines, but she was already a consistent force,
and I had a feeling she’d be named to the Olympic team. While she clearly possessed a warm and generous spirit for such a competitor, I didn’t get to know Jaycie well until after the Olympics when we were participating in the post-Olympic tour. Even though we never said much during our time competing against each other, she was always friendly and kind in passing, and I knew I would like her more as I got to know her.

Believe it or not, aside from Kerri, I rarely had a chance to talk with the other Magnificent Seven gymnasts leading up to and during the Olympics because we were all spread out training in different gyms and saw one another only at the actual competitions. I was given very strict rules by the Karolyis and was allowed to leave my hotel room only for practice, competition, physical therapy, and meals, so there wasn’t much opportunity to get to know them at the Olympics. Kerri and I had to sit with the Karolyis for all of our meals, while the other five teammates (Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Jaycie Phelps, and Shannon Miller) would sit together during the Games. I’d always look over at them as they laughed and talked, and wish I could join them. I’m sure they wondered why the heck Kerri and I never sat with them. I felt badly because it alienated us from the rest of the team to some extent, but deep down I hoped they understood that it was our coaches who didn’t permit it.