Off Balance: A Memoir (20 page)

I was near the end of the line as we marched into the arena to receive our medals. The arena was on fire with excitement, constant flashes from cameras, and deafening cheers from the crowd. The team final scores posted: 1. USA 389.225, 2. Russia 388.404, 3. Romania 388.246.

As we walked toward the podium, Bela appeared out of nowhere carrying Kerri in his arms. Her leg was bandaged and her foot was in a splint, but she was smiling now and she looked okay. Bela wedged himself right behind me in line. As Team USA walked up the stairs and onto the podium to receive our recognition, I waved to the crowd. Bela was still behind me carrying Kerri as our team stood on the podium. For a brief moment, I thought Bela might actually stay on the podium as we received our medals and I was horrified. I knew Bela was a publicity hound, and I wouldn’t have put it past him to try and steal some of the attention away from the gymnasts. He was still carrying Kerri, looking around and smiling at the cheering crowd. Bela certainly knew how to play the part of the caring coach when the cameras were rolling. The media ate it up. I had seen the true face of the Karolyis and heard them bad-mouth many of their own gymnasts behind their backs. I didn’t believe that Bela truly cared about Kerri or her leg. He was putting on a show and trying to share in the limelight that Kerri had earned with the rest of her team. I was relieved when he finally put her down and walked off the medal stand. Finally, with all of us on the stand together, I looked out into the sea of people and saw that this truly was America’s gold medal! The crowd was so joyous, so supportive.

For fifty years, it was believed that the Americans could never win a women’s gymnastics team gold medal because of the powerhouse of the Soviet Union and their centralized system. Their program had been state-funded with national teams hand selected
based on their mental and physical makeup. They typically had a pool of thirty gymnasts and approximately twelve coaches assisting at all times. When this system collapsed and the Eastern bloc countries broke apart, there were not only seven Soviet gymnasts to compete against, there were more than twenty-one gymnasts when you included the Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, not to mention the Romanians and Chinese. Our competition was fierce, so it was a huge feat to finally prove that the Americans were the best in the world in women’s artistic gymnastics.

From the podium, I scanned the crowd right, left, then up and down. Below the podium, in the section generally reserved for media and photographers, I saw Tata front and center in his patriotic Uncle Sam top hat and his jumbo Sony camera hanging around his neck. His roll of film must have just run out because he had lifted the camera to his ear to listen to the film rewinding. Although a little embarrassed, I was impressed that Tata, in this silly hat, managed to get the best seat in the house for the gold medal moment. It made me chuckle. I knew that Mama, Christina, and my ever-supportive aunt Janice were in the audience, too, probably cheering their lungs out, but I just couldn’t see them.

My teammates and I rallied in for one final team hug on the podium after the national anthem and team captain Amanda said some words of congratulations, then we did a victory lap around the arena. We were escorted to the VIP press box where our parents were waiting. It was time to face Tata and Mama. The butterflies tickled my stomach. While all my teammates couldn’t wait to see their families, I wondered if there was some way to put off seeing mine—which was pretty sad considering I’d just reached a lifelong goal that they had mapped out for me and helped me achieve. I knew I wouldn’t be met with the same enthusiasm as my peers would be, but I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. Part of me didn’t want to see the disappointed look on their faces. Even though I had just won a gold medal, the expectations placed on me were higher.

My parents were near the front of the room along with Janice and my supportive, cheering little sister Christina. Unfortunately, Tata’s and Mama’s glum faces said it all. I figured they had to be proud of me on some level, and I wished they’d shown it more. They made it tough for me to feel proud of myself at that moment.

“What happened on your vaults?” was the first thing Tata said to me. I didn’t answer.

Although Mama wasn’t saying much, she did hug me and privately whispered, “Good job,” but I saw the grief in her eyes. Perhaps it was because they both knew how hard I’d worked. If only I knew then what I know now, my entire attitude would have been different. It didn’t have to be this way. Being treated like a failure or being belittled for not being “perfect” is so hurtful and damaging to a child.

That night, our team was invited to a post-Olympic party held in our honor at Planet Hollywood and hosted by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. I was starstruck when I met the superstar couple, who I thought were the nicest people. Demi actually made an extra effort to talk with me and some of my teammates. I think she had just finished the
G.I. Jane
movie because her head was still shaven and she was wearing a bandana. I thought she was so badass!

Once the trays of appetizers and special food started to pass by, all I could think about was how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since midday when I munched on a Rice Krispies bar that I’d snuck into my dorm room. It was already around ten and my tummy was rumbling. I was cautious and only ate a small serving of plain grilled chicken with some vegetables because I knew I would be back in the gym in the morning.

A number of my teammates and I had qualified for individual finals. I qualified for floor and beam finals; Dawes qualified for vault, uneven bars, floor, and All-Around; Shannon qualified for vault, beam, and All-Around; and Amy qualified for uneven bar finals. Kerri had qualified for events, too, but wasn’t able to compete due to her injury. I was actually able to compete in the All-Around
by taking Kerri’s spot when she withdrew from competition. My training resumed the next day, with my teammates each going off with their personal coaches. I dreaded being with the Karolyis by myself, especially since they had barely talked to or acknowledged me after my falls, but the practice turned out to be very low spirited and uneventful, almost as if they had already written me off and were just present as a formality.

As I went into the All-Around day of competition, I had one thing I wanted to prove—my vault. My goal was to stick my vaults on this day, and this time I nailed it! I executed my vault and stuck the landing. I remember shaking my head a little after my second clean landing, wondering why I wasn’t able to do it like that in the team competition. Having just missed a medal by coming in fourth in floor exercise later that week, and falling on my head during my beam routine in the event final, I didn’t win an individual medal. I felt satisfied, however, that I was able to stick that vault landing at the Olympics and, of course, that as a team we had walked away with gold medals around our necks.

Heading down to breakfast the morning after the Olympic Gala exhibition, I made sure to first go to Marta and Bela’s dorm room to say good morning, as I’d been taught to routinely do. I knocked on the door, waited, then knocked again. No answer. I knocked yet again. About that time, someone coming down the hallway told me that the Karolyis had left.
Left?
I thought.
Left where? To breakfast?
Bela and Marta had actually just packed up and left. No “goodbye,” “farewell,” or even a “good luck in life”?

I wasn’t able to attend the Olympic Closing Ceremonies, which I was looking forward to since I missed Opening Ceremonies as well. Our coaches had thought our competition was too close to Opening Day and feared we’d get worn out, so we were forced to miss out on that experience. Looking back, I still regret not being able to participate in Opening and Closing Ceremonies, which are such special highlights for most of the athletes.

Interestingly, when NBC aired the women’s gymnastics competition on television, it was tape delayed, so all of the commentary from Tim Daggett, Elfi Schlegel, and John Tesh was done via voiceover. The results were already in the books. The network played up the drama of Kerri’s vault, which led viewers to believe that Team USA would take gold only if Kerri had stuck her vault. In truth, our team scores following my vault were already high enough to cement Team USA taking the gold medal. Ironically, it was a fan I met during a nationwide post-Olympic tour who pointed this out to me. I never bothered calculating my vault scores because the end result was gold for the Magnificent Seven. Kerri’s heroic landing was certainly an iconic moment that added great drama for all of us, but the guilt I had carried thinking my vaults almost cost us the gold suddenly lifted with this realization.

This also made me realize that Tata must have known that my vault scores were, in fact, high enough to get us the team gold. Tata was good at math and always calculated the scores in his head before they were posted on the scoreboard. Later, Mama did confirm to me that they both knew my falls didn’t jeopardize the gold, but they never bothered to tell me this.

I will always be grateful to have played a part in a historical moment in American gymnastics history. I have respect for all of my Magnificent Seven teammates because we each worked tirelessly toward this goal and, although we had different backgrounds and gymnastics clubs, we came together to win. This is something that will bond this team forever. We also had the first ever all-female Team USA coaching staff. Winning the gold medal in 1996 was monumental in US Women’s Gymnastics on multiple levels. We changed the landscape of US gymnastics forever and, for me, reflecting back, it was truly …
magnificent!

Chapter 9

EMANCIPATION

A
fter the Olympics, the Magnificent Seven participated in a nationwide Olympic tour, which had been negotiated prior to the Games. The tour turned out to be one of the best experiences of my gymnastics career and my life up to that point. I was able to do what I loved—pure gymnastics—and perform for the public without the pressure of judges and scores and, most important, without the Karolyis barking orders at me and criticizing my every move. The tour was about gymnastics, plain and simple, and I loved that.

Bela was on the post-Olympic tour as well, but he rarely paid attention to me. I’m told
that Bela watched some of my routines from backstage, but other than that, I felt invisible to him. It was difficult to reconcile that a month prior to the tour the Karolyis and I had been together around the clock, and, now he acted as if he had never even met me, sometimes passing me in the hallway without a word. It was oddly hurtful that to him I had obviously been just a tool, a means to an end. Since I felt like I’d disgraced Bela by falling and then not winning the All-Around gold medal to bring him the honor and credit he thought he deserved, I felt like I was no longer any value to him. I was relieved to be out from under his thumb. It was the first time in a long time that I wasn’t walking around in fear, but it was also very confusing. As a young teen, I couldn’t understand how he and Marta could just erase me out of their lives in a split second.

On the other hand, the tour itself was my first taste of freedom and boy, was it sweet. I was traveling across the country to connect with fans in each city and perform my heart out. I jokingly refer to this time as my “rock star” period because we lived out of suitcases and a tour bus for several months. It was the first time I was able to actually get to know most of my teammates, bonding with them as we went from city to city, arena to arena, in ways I had not been able to during the Olympics. It was an incredible experience, one I’ll never forget.

It was also an opportunity to meet the gymnastics fans and I
loved
it. They shared a true appreciation for our sport and were so welcoming and thankful to Team USA for bringing home the gold. For me, the flowers, teddy bears, letters of encouragement, and enormous collective support I felt from these fans allowed me to temporarily forget some of my personal hardships. The disappointment and feelings of failure I felt from Tata and my coaches at the Olympics were buffered by the acceptance I received from these enthusiastic fans all across America.

It was also the little extra things—things that would seem trivial
to most teenagers, but that to me made the whole touring experience a carefree, happy time. For example, I was trying foods I’d never been allowed to eat. I tried my first soda and peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I’d order French toast for breakfast from room service in almost every hotel I stayed in. During our breaks, I’d often go shopping with my teammates or tour members. From hearing some of the other girls talk, I knew I was making a good amount of money because the gymnasts were being paid on a per-show basis and there were a lot of shows on this fifty-city tour. As someone who had basically lived in the gym since I could remember, I was content with the per diem allowance I was given by the tour managers and rarely needed more money for everyday things. I liked having some cash for food and shopping and the per diem covered those expenses.

Like everything else, Tata handled my finances and kept me in the dark about the money as well as all related business matters. He never included or informed me of even the most basic details of the contracts or appearance fees, so I had no idea how much money I was being paid for any of my events, including the tour. I just knew that it was a very successful tour and we were selling out nearly every venue. The team exceeded expectations and, from what I understand, the tour was in such demand that it was extended into spring of 1997. An additional forty cities or so were added. Looking back, I can’t believe how little I knew about the money I was earning, despite my young age. I was fourteen and fifteen at the time of the tour, so I just went where I was told to go and did what I was told to do, and didn’t concern myself with asking questions about my finances. I just loved performing for the fans and was ecstatic when I learned I’d be touring additional months.