Moceanu Breaks From Her Parents

Olympic gymnast Dominique Moceanu has split from her parents. She is keeping her whereabouts a secret from them, and the 17-year-old wants to be declared an adult so she can claim her earnings.

“I kill myself training and going to school, and what is he doing with my money?” Moceanu said in the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday, referring to her father, Dumitru. “They haven’t been working since 1996. Where does their income come from? Me.”

Her father threatened over the weekend to have her beloved Romanian coach, Luminita Miscenco, deported. That was enough to send Moceanu to the law office of Roy Moore, who on Monday asked a court to declare the gymnast an adult.

Moore said neither he nor his client knows how much money she has earned or how much has been lost. But Moore said a trust that had been set up for her is all but gone.

Moore suspects that trust bankrolled a $4-million gym and other ventures, including a clothing outlet, under the Moceanu Gymnastics Inc. business title.

If she is declared an adult, Moceanu would be entitled to the earnings from the businesses. A temporary restraining order was issued Monday to keep parents Dumitru and Camelia Moceanu from her at least until a Nov. 11 hearing.

At a news conference Wednesday, Moceanu’s father pleaded for his daughter to come home.

“We love her very much,” Dumitru Moceanu said, choking back tears. “And I hope she change her mind and come home, start training again.”

He said the petition and the restraining order were the work of others, not his daughter.

“She’s just a child, she’s just a minor,” he said. “I don’t believe this comes from her. It comes from other people.”

Moceanu, born in Los Angeles in 1981, moved to the Houston area with her parents in 1990 so she could train with Bela Karolyi--the famed coach of Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton and Kerri Strug.

For the five years leading to the 1996 Olympics, Moceanu trained in Karolyi’s gym. After Atlanta, Karolyi sold his gym and said he was retiring from elite coaching.

So Moceanu’s father, a used-car salesman, poured more than $4 million into a new gym and his daughter went from coach to coach before settling on Miscenco, now credited with reviving Moceanu’s floundering career.

At 14, Moceanu was the youngest member of the 1996 Olympic team at the Atlanta Games and is the only member of that team still competing in all gymnastics events. She expects to compete in the world championships next year and possibly the 2000 Sydney Games.

After months of arguing, Moceanu’s father threatened Saturday to fire Miscenco and have her deported. With Miscenco by her side, a fearful but determined Moceanu made a second call to Moore from a shopping mall and asked to meet with him. She has been living with friends since.