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Christy started gymnastics before she was in kindergarten, and by the time she was 7 her coach Al Fong had her training four to five hours a day 4 days a week.
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She was born to parents who been gymnasts in Romania. Her father Dumitru was on the junior national team, but his mother forced him to quit so he could focus on school. He made a committment that his first born, boy or girl, would be a gymnast.
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She outgrew the gynastics programs in San Antonio,so her family uprooted and moved to Houston.
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She was age 12, and made it on her first try. Christy had more than 9 hours of training a day on top of school. Due to the small amount of time no one noticed that she was eating just an apple a day..or even just 1 slice of apple.
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Chrsity Henrich's quick climb through national rankings is the reason he got the award, and she was his first gymnast with a shot at the olympics.
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The doctors told her to stay off it for a month , but Julissa still went to the gym every day working only on uneven bars. Karolyi ignored her during this time.
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She could no longer stand the abusive training methods of Bela Karolyi. She was ranked 13th in the country with 6 months until the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials.
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After just 7 months at the new gym Julissa knew she wasn't making progress so found a different gym where world-class gymnast Christy Henrich was training.
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Christy's coach Al Fong wanted to get her, and teammate Julissa Gomez, as much international exposure before the Olympic Trials. It was at this meet when a judge told her that she was fat and needed to lose weight.
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Christy placed 10th in the all around competition, and her hopes of making the Olympic team soared.
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She qulified for individual finals, and had the highest vault of any american.
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Warming up for individual finals Julissa took her second practice vault. She ran down the runway whipped a roundoff in front of the springboard, but she was out of control and her left foot landed on the springboard while her right foot slipped off the back. She didn't have any lift, her head didn't clear the top of the horse. Julissa crashed full speed, head first into the side of the horse. Her neck snapped. The force of the vault carried her body over the horse, and she flopped on the mat.
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After a week passed the doctors told Julissa's parents that she was stable enough to be flown back to the states. She had to have a tracheotomy which allowed her to breath easier. Sadly, the night before they were supposed to leave Julissa's tracheal tube came out and she was in a coma. Even if she came out of a coma she would spend her life in a vegetative state.
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Recovering from mononucleosis and a fractured vertebrae in her back Christy missed making the team by 0.118 of a piont. "It was like her whole worl was crushed. Like everything had ended," said Sandy Henrich. Afterwards Christy returned to the gym in Blue Springs with her eyes fixed on the 1992 summer games.
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They recommended a long term care facility, but the Gomezes decided to care for her at home, and took a 3 month training course.
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After a judge told her to lose weight, food became the enemy. When she was forced to eat she threw up afterwards. Christy said she never felt hunger pains, she numbed herself, from everything. Christy was a candidate for anorexia and bulimia.
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Durin this event Christy fell on her head twice, and a United Staes Gymnastics Federation official confronted Al Fong about training Christy too hard. Al Fong called the USGF about his suspicions of Christy's eating disorder, her parents denied there was a problem.
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The meet was held in Oegon, but Christy was so weak she was pulled. Al Fong said that he kicked her out of his gym and told her not to return until she gained weight. Christy had different memories and said, " It got to the point where I was so weak he didn't want to fool with me anymore he just worried about his reputation.
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She announced her retirement 18 months before her second shot at the Olympics. She was 18 years old and weighed less than 80 pounds.
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At the age of ten Dominique and her family moved to Houston so taht she could train with Bela Karolyi.
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Three years after going home Julissa conracted an infection, and the doctor advised her parents to let the illness take its course. At first they insisted that he treat her illness, but as her condition worsened Otilia and Ramiro decided to let her go.
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After Christy's weight continued to fall her parents put checked her in when her weight dropped to 60 pounds. She checked in and out of the hospital 10 times in 18 months and was between stays during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
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At the age of 13 Dominique was the senior national champion, the youngest in history.
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At the age of 12 Dominique achieved this
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Her weight was at 63 pounds and Christy spent 6 weeks in the eating disorder ward. Before her parents took her she lined the bottom of her suitcase with laxatives, and threw up whenever she could.
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She weighed 52 pounds. "My life is a horrifying nightmare," Christy said. "It feels like there's a beast inside of me, like a monster. It feels evil."
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The organization was created by gymnastics fan named Keith Mccaffety. The federation organized a fund-raising lunch that Nadia Comaneci, Bart Conner, and Kim Zmeskal attended.
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She stayed at the hospital for 5 months, and when she returned she threw her scale away. She forced herself to eat, and her weight climbed to 70 pounds. She stopped eating again when she couldn't see bone and stopped seeing her psychologist.
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She dropped below 65 pounds but refused to return to the hospital.
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Henrich told interviewers that she wanted to beat the disease before summer. She also told them that she has a fear of calories and hadn't eaten for days. Gymnastics made her afraid to eat food because it made her feel like she was doing something bad due to her coaches.
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She stopped fighting her therapist and tried to gain weight. Christy wanted to get well so she could marry her boyfriend Bo, move to Florida, work as a nurse, and have children.
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She had returned to the hospital becasue her weight dropped below 50 pounds. Within a week of leaving St. Joseph Health Center she was rushed to the Research Medical Center in Kansas City.
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Five days after her birthday Christy slipped into a coma, and died of multiple organ failure.
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The team was composed of Jaycie Phelps, Kerri Strug, Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, and Shannon Miller. This team was significantly different from the 1992 Olympic team. After the first rotation America inched ahead into first place.In the final rotation of the team competition the U.S. was on the verge of winning its first team gold medal when Moceanu faltered on her 2 vaults.Strug pulls out the win when she performs a vault with a torn ankle ligament.
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She claimed that her parents stole her childhood and her money. Until the story was revealed Dominique's life had seemed like a fairy tale.
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Her body strained to adjust, and she bounced from coach to coach when Bela Karolyi retired.
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Dumitru used Dominique's money to build the gym in Spring, Texas. It was said to cost about $4 million. He refused to allow her any say in decisions about her mone, training and career.
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Stan Feig represented Moceanu during and after the '96 olympics remembered how unhappy she was. He dropped her as a client in 1997 because he was concerned what was happening with her money, and where it was being invested.
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This changed the Moceanu family forever.
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Dominique competed in the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York and won the all around title, but she was a different gymnast.
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She won gold medals in vault and beam and then finished third in oth the all-around and floor exercise. Miscenco was encouraging her in gymnastics and her personal life, but her father didn't like that.
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Dominique's coach helped her fall in love with gymnastics again, and showed her that there was life outside of gymnastics.
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She shocked her parents and the gymnastics world. She filed suit to be declared independent of her parents, and she also secured a temporary restraining order against them too. She told her story to the media stating that her parents took her childhood and fortune. She also claimed that he hit her on several occasions when she gained weight. Made headlines around the country.
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They agreed not to fight her suit. Still, two days later at the formal hearing when asked if he agreed with the settlement it took Dumitru a while to sign. Dumitru still remained trustee of her financial trust which she couldn't touch till she was 35 years old.
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The police had tape recordings in which her father had allegedly discussed hiring someone to kill Miscenco and Dominique's friend Brian Huggins. Dumitru was prepared to pay $10,000 dollars for them which were said to take place on November 20. They escaped to the Cayman Islands, but no arrests were made.
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She discovered that her father hired a private investigator to trail her and tap her phone. She briefly moved out of her apartment and stopped going to school.
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Dominique wanted a strricter restraining order against her father, and she testified for hours about his temper, physical abuse, and threats. When asked about trying to hire a hit man he denied citing the 5th amendment. The restraining order stipulated that he wasn't allowed within 500 feet of where she lives, works, or goes to school.
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She began working out at former gymnastics coach Rita Brown's gym in Katy, Texas. A few weeks later she moved to another of Brown's gyms in Florida. Then had her coach, Miscenco, move to Florida too. After about 2 and a half weeks of training they left to train at the Olympic Training center in Colorado.
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Terms were not disclosed but it included lifting the restraing order against her father. She didn't talk with the press, but released a statement through her agents.
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In early summer she stated that she was planning on staying at the training center until September then she was going to tr to qualify for teh U.S. World Team Trials. Dumitru announced he was closing his gym.
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Dominique's injuries kept her from competing in the U.S. Championships in Saccramento in August, and in the World Championships two months later in China. She hopes to be healthy enough to tryout for the Olympics in August of 2000, and Olympics in September.
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