The relation athlete - coach is essential in high level sports. In 1993, a twelve year old gymnast left her brains on the balance beam because her coach felt that was the best punishment of her hesitations. The girl has never hesitated again.
Her death moved the Romanian world of sports. Leaders pretended to see this for the first time, instead of abuse being a habitual practice. Children are being beaten in Romanian sports, especially in gymnastics.
Children leave their homes when they are seven years old, children from poor families get into a system of less food and more beatings. Coaches justify the beatings as 'or they won't get anywhere'
Nobody really wants to know how Nadia Comaneci, Gina Gogean or Lavinia Milosovici became champions and what real price they paid for it.
The shocking story of a Romanian gymnast (Andrei Nourescu)
Has covered gymnastics for more than a decade. Attended all major competitions all over the world. After witnessing the triumphs and sometimes disasters of Romanian gymnastics he thought he had seen it all and that Romanian gymnastics did not hold any secrets from him. After having the privilege to write an exclusive story on a top gymnast he realized he was wrong: he never understood anything at all.
Finally for the first time, a top Romanian gymnast shares her story. One of the Golden Girls courageously decided that it is time to break the silence. Her story, with all its tragedies, is sometimes soft and nice, sometimes hard and painful. For sure it is worth reading.
Disclaimer
This book is based on an actual story. However, the events and characters in this book are fictions. Any connection or similar fact related to a real person is pure casual
More than 50000 spectators are looking at her in the huge Atlanta's Georgia Dome. She is only 14 and knows that her future career, if not her entire life depends on the routine she is going to perform. The Olympics are broadcasted around the world. Of the billion spectators Alexandra knows one of them is praying for her: her grandmother in Bucharest.
Alexandra focusses, her coach Octavian Penu looks at her with cold eyes and shouts "Go! And do it well". For a moment the remembers she is still angry with him after Penu pulled her out of the All-round competition four days ago to give a chance to a better gymnast. She had been crying for hours, but now is the moment for revenge.
The judges turn on the green light and Alexandra gets on the balance beam. After a few seconds she misses a link and she falls down. 50000 spectators remain mute and while she gets back onto the balance beam, again some tears appear into Alexandra's eyes. She lost everything but she wants to finish her routine. The pain is almost making her lose her sense, but she continues. Another skill and she falls again. Penu is turning around and is not looking anymore, like he is afraid of the tragedy. Alexandra cries and again climbs back onto the balance beam. Before the end of the routine, she falls again.
After the routine Penu comes near her and angrily whispers in her ear: "Get the hell out of here! Out of this hall" Alexandra is desperate, she picks up her clothes and leaves the hall, she feels like the earth is falling down on her head.
The childhood
Alexandra Mateescu's journey with sports started when she was just four years old. When she was four her parents thought it would be good for her to join the swimming pool near her house. They felt swimming was good for her to develop a well-rounded body, even if she never became a champion. When they saw the pool for the first time her parents were not impressed. The water was dirty and cold and there were many children swimming in it. There was no changing room and no hot showers. Her mother's instinct was to take her back home but her father was convinced Alexandra should give it a try. They handed her over to the coach, they could not stay with her as they had to go to work. They had difficulty making ends meet. Both parents had decent jobs which only earned them about 100$ per month.
From swimming to gymnastics
Days went by and Alexandra started to enjoy swimming. She was not very fond of the cold water but she enjoyed spending time and playing with the other children. After the training they would get a wafer (cookie?). But one day one of the coaches would change her life forever. Alexandra was on the edge of the pool skipping the rope as a warm-up. The coach looked at her for a while and then called her parents. "Take her to gymnastics, she has spring and ability for the sport, it would be such a pity if you don't try with gymnastics". Her parents listened to him and the next day they went to the Triumph Club, a modest club but still near her house. The coach Benone Slavuteanu received her and took her though the selection, where 50 other girls were also trying to be selected. About 30 girls, including Alexandra, were selected and training began. Alexandra enjoyed it very much, and was delighted to go back to the gym for training, even though she did not understand much of it. As time went by the requirements became more and more difficult. Alexandra was learning the most important elements but it was getting harder and harder.
The first competition
When she was six years old, Alexandra Mateescu competed in her first competition. It was called "The little gymnast" and she was very nervous. She went to the competition with her whole family who watched her from the stands. She won the all-around and 3 events, earning a 10.00 on each of them. The competitions multiplied, many of them outside of Bucharest. Alexandra won almost all of them.
Alexandra started school and her schedule became extremely busy. She went to school in the mornings, went home to change her clothes, went to the gym for training. When she came back home there was hardly any time to do homework before she fell asleep. The children in the neighborhood would often invite her to come and play but Alexandra always refused them. The children did not understand that the now seven year old girl had given up her childhood a long time ago.
The coaches started training Alexandra twice a day. In order to go to school to, Alexandra changed classes so she could to school in the afternoon. After school it was back to the gym for the second training session. Often Alexandra would miss the last hour of school because she was so tired she went home to rest. Her teachers were very understanding.
At the National competitions Alexandra made a great debut. She won two gold medals at the National Championships in Focsani. Het grandmother went with the to the competition. She rarely saw her family as she now lived at the Triumph club training camp. She only came home on weekends. Her parents did not worry about Alexandra not living at home, she was a grown-up now.
The 1992 National championships were held in Constanta, again her grandmother travelled with her. As usual she was the best but she was competing such a difficult skills that she surprised even the judges. "I was competing such a difficult moves on the floor that it took the judges half an hour to score my routine. I received a 9.95 but deserved a 10.00" Alexandra remembers.
In 1993 Alexandra joined the Junior National team. The coordinating coach was Elizabeta Stoiciu who was also working at the Steaua club. She was the wife of the General Secretary of the Romanian gymnastics Federation, Andre Stoiciu.
Alexandra was staying at the National training center but two days per week she travelled to the Steaua club for training. Seeing her skills and her value, Elizabeta Stoiciu asked Alexandra to move to Steaua club but she refused. "From that time Mrs. Elizabeta looked at me differently, she did not treat me like she used to" said Alexandra.
Leader of the Junior team
Alexandra Mateescu was progressing more and more. She was by far the best junior gymnasts and the specialist coaches were watching her. Her parents were delighted with the progress and were very proud of their daughter. Alexandra was the light of their lives, all their hopes were placed on her. The economic situation in Romania was extremely difficult and Alexandra's father lost his job and had a lot of trouble finding a new one. Alexandra's father was the first employee to be fired as the bosses assumed that he had a stable financial situation. "Your daughter Alexandra is making good money with gymnastics and you can live from it" His bosses motivated his dismissal. Alexandra's father did not want to stay unemployed, he borrowed some money and started his own business, as Alexandra did not make as much money as his former bosses assumed. He opened a little shop where he sold shoes.
Separation from her parents
In the meantime Alexandra was working hard and she was amazing her coaches with her ambition. She was always the last to leave the gym. "I was always trying to do as much as I could, as best as I could" remembers Alexandra. "If things did not go well I would burst into tears, Mrs. Eliza always came to encourage me".
Alexandra's first trip abroad was to Istanbul, Turkey where she competed in the Bosphorus cup competition. She was very excited but came back exhausted after two days driving in an old touring bus.
As the requirements became harder the Romanian gymnastics federation became stricter and moved the team to the National training center. The trainings became harder and the girls called their parents every day. "We were calling our parents to come and take us home because we could not do it anymore". The gymnasts were desperate and they hardly realized that this was only the beginning. Even the meetings with their parents were reduced. Before, the parent were allowed to visit their children twice per week, then they were only allowed to visit on Sundays. After that only once every two weeks and so on. "I was lucky that I was from Bucharest and my parents were close. They used to visit me in secret, without being seen by the coaches" Alexandra recalls. "They would bring me some biscuits and ask how I was doing. I never told them how hard it was for me because I did not want to worry them"
Many restrictions and less school
One after the other the gymnasts were deprived of calling their parents too often or having meetings with their parents for more than once per month. They were forbidden to leave the building they were living at other than for school or training. All kinds of sweets were taken off the menu and they were forbidden to eat anything that was not given to them at the table. As the restrictions were multiplied, so were the trainings sessions both in duration and intensity. The first training session was from 08:00 to 12:00. After that they went to school, to return to the gym from 15:00 to 18:00. They were not doing much at school, it was more a matter of attendance. "Being gymnasts we were treated differently, we weren't attending all the classes and didn’t even know all of our teachers. We were given grades without doing anything" describes Alexandra.
The first beating
In order to control their weight as much as possible, the coached introduced the use of the scale every evening. "If we even weighted 200 grams more than the previous evening we were hit in the head with a notebook that made us leaving the scale feeling dizzy" says Alexandra. Another punishment for putting on weight was the ban on having lunch or dinner. Inventive and hungry the girls found all kind of solutions. They either appealed to the "reserves" hidden under their beds (biscuits, wafers, or chocolate received from their parents) or they appealed to a more risky method: the escape out of the window. "I remember how we were starving and while our coaches were having lunch with the other girls, we were jumping out of the window running to the grocery store to get something to eat" says Alexandra.
Getting suspicious, the coaches soon resorted to more ingenious methods of control. They followed the gymnasts in secret from their car when they were coming from or going to school. Once they caught them stopping at a food store they would leave them but later in the evening bring them into a room for an inquiry. Elizabeta Stoiciu asked each of them what they bought at the food store. The girls who refused to answer were slapped across the face. "It took my breath away because I had never seen a coach hit a gymnast. I was so scared that they were going to beat me too that when they asked I admitted that I had bought some biscuits. I got off without being beaten, I was just called a cow and stupid" Alexandra recalls. In time, also Alexandra would get used to being slapped too.
As they were caught in the act, the coaches decided to change the system and didn't let the girls go to school anymore. The federation arranged some teachers to come to the hostel where they were living as to eliminate the girls leaving the complex.
Besides Elizabeta Stoiciu, another four coaches were working with the Junior team: Stefan Panait, Adrian Voron, Benone Slavuteanu and Liviu Teodoru. Each of the coaches had their own way of working and each was specialized on different apparatus. Besides being punished as described before, gaining weight was also punished with extra conditioning. "When we were putting on weight often we had to do five compulsory floor routines in a row. That took our breath away and we would make mistakes. At one time I could not do it anymore, Mr. Panait slapped me so hard that I fell to the ground" Alexandra recalls. "But I got off cheaply, Mr. Panait had something against her colleague Pascariu, she was beaten regularly and I felt really sorry for her"
When the gymnasts weren't doing anything wrong and the coaches had nothing to reproach them, they would still invent something to tease them. In the winter of 95 when they were at a training camp in Poiana Brasov, the coaches played a farce on the girls. They asked the receptionist to say that she saw the gymnasts buy sweets and juice. The gymnasts were gathered into a room for interrogation. All the girls denied they had bought anything and they were sincere. The coaches kept yelling at them and Alexandra finally lied that she bought some juice, just to stop their sadistic game. The coaches laughed and thought it was 'very funny'
The escape
The fight was not only physical, but also psychological. From time to time one of the gymnast was giving up and went home when she could not take the strict rules of the game anymore. When the team came back from the second official trip to Turkey, one of the gymnasts just ran away from the hostel. For fear, she did not even go home. Called by Elizabeta Stoiciu, the parents became desperate, asking with tears in their eyes about their daughter but the coaches just shrugged their shoulders. "We don't know, she just left and left her luggage in her room". Alexandra's roommate finally appeared and she refused to continue. She took her luggage and went home, leaving Alexandra alone. "I was very sorry as we had become friends. I used to share everything with her, even the biscuits and sandwiches my mother used to bring me from time to time" says Alexandra.
The Fraud
In the middle of 1993, Alexandra's father was ordered to come to the gym. He did not know why as this happened very rarely. "Alexandra must have done something really wrong" he thought. After training Alexandra was ordered to stay in the gym for a conversation with Elizabeta Stoiciu, Romanian gymnastics federation president, Nicolae Dulgheru and her father. Without asking his permission, but rather communicating their decision, they told them that they had to modify Alexandra's age and changing her date of birth in her passport. They made her a year older than she was. They explained that it was Alexandra's only chance to get to the Olympic Games. Both Alexandra and her father accepted it.
The chance named William
Alexandra's first official trip to the West was to England. Unfortunately she had to watch London through the glass of the bus they were travelling in. Still she was impressed by the sights she read about in her school books; the Tower of London, the Tower bridge, The house of Parliament imprinted on her mind, even if she only saw them for a few seconds. The arrived at a hostel in Portsmouth near the gym. Daily while walking to the gym, they said 'hello' to the security guard William, an old man who got to like them. He saw one of the gymnasts trying to get a Toblerone bar from the vending machine and wanted to help her. The gymnast was scared that she got caught and ran away, leaving the bar and her money behind. The old men immediately understood her panic and whenever he got the chance he gave them chocolate and chewing gum. One day right before the competition Alexandra had to perform her floor routine. She made some mistakes as she was not yet used to the equipment. Elizabeta Stoiciu grabbed her and slapped her across the face. "She beat me real hard but I got of cheaply" Alexandra recalls. While Elizabeta had her hand in Alexandra's hair, William appeared in the gym and what he saw took his breath away. Elizabeta saw the old man and let Alexandra go right away. "We will settle this at the hotel" Elizabeta hissed in her ear.
Cakes from the 'enemy'
In the spring of 1994 Alexandra competed in her first big competition; The European Championships in Stockholm. The relation between the gymnasts and the coaches was very good and there was a friendly atmosphere in the team. The results showed the atmosphere and Alexandra was simply brilliant in the Junior competition, she won gold in the all-around competition and on floor. After becoming the Junior European Champion Elizabeta Stoiciu hugged her right in the middle of the gym, in front of millions of spectators. "It was probably one of the best moments of my gymnastics career. I was so proud when Mrs. Eliza told me I was the best" Alexandra remembers.
The European Championships in Stockholm was also the first opportunity for the juniors to meet the Romanian Olympic team with the great stars Lavinia Milencovici and Gina Cobean and the great coaches Octavian Penu and Marilena Bismark which the junior gymnasts worshiped. There was always a rivalry between the teams from Bucharest and from Deva. Elizabeta Stoiciu was considered favored by the Romanian gymnastics Federation and therefore was a rival of the Deva team coaches. They felt threatened by the good conditions in Bucharest as well as the steady flow of talent that came up through the Bucharest school. When they met at the Europeans the frictions, though discreet, started to appear. Elizabeta Stoiciu drew the attention of her juniors not to stay too long with the stars of the senior team. "If Marilena Bismark gives you cakes, say no" the instructed her gymnasts. One day when they were preparing to go back to Romania the senior team coaches brough some cakes for their gymnasts. Seeing the juniors watching them Marilena Bismark offered them some cakes too. They took the cakes and thanked her but they did not eat them. When Elizabeta was with them they explained that Marilena gave them cakes and asked if they could eat them. Pleased with their discipline, Elizabeta gave them permission to enjoy the sweets.
The victory of vanity
After watching the Romanian senior team at Europeans, Alexandra admired them even more. Not long after Europeans Alexandra scored an important victory at the National Championships in Ploiesti where she beat Gina Corbean in the all-around to the surprise of both the junior and senior coaches. "It was the first time I started to realize that I was quite a value if I could beat Gina Corbean" says Alexandra.
Her success at the Europeans gave Alexandra the first taste of fame. Journalists wanted interviews with her. Clever and talkative she soon became their favorite for interviews as it was a real pleasure to talk to her. Romanian television had plans to make a film about Alexandra seizing the opportunity of the quit time after Europeans. The send a team to the Olympic center in Bucharest. They shot the gymnast for 4 days watching their every move. "I was having some stomach aches and was not training too much so I had time for filming" When the film was released, it won an important prize at an International film festival.
In the meantime Elizabeta Stoiciu was not to fond of the rising gymnast who had refused to transfer to her club. "Eliza liked Claudia Preducan better since she transferred to Steaua and Eliza wanted her to be the center of attention" explains Alexandra. The relations did not improve when Alexandra won the prize for the most beautiful gymnast at a competition in France.
As Alexandra was a member of the little and powerless Triumph club, she could not benefit from the conditions or the support that a gymnasts of her level deserved. Therefore her father started thinking more and more of transferring her to a club that could provide for his daughter. The club was easily found, the Farul Constanta club where Simona Aurar also was a member of. Her father started to contact the club but the Federation intervened and tried to stop the transfer. The Romanian Gymnastics Federation decided that the transfer to Constanta was not possible, the only transfer possible was to the Steaua club. Alexandra's father said to the Federation that he would send Alexandra abroad to compete for another country. The Federation started to threaten the family and the threats became more and more absurd going as far as telling her father that if he withdrew his daughter he would have to pay back all the money that was invested in her.
No commission
In the beginning of 1995 Alexandra, together with the Romanian team participated in a dual meet against Hungary. Alexandra was going through a difficult time as she was having some problems with her leg. "I was in great pain and took many sedatives. With all the painkillers, my leg still hurt a lot and I was not able to control my legs, of course my routines suffered. Still I defeated the pain and competed. While I was warming up I felt pretty good but suddenly I felt a sharp pain, like a knife penetrating my muscle. I right away went to Mrs. Eliza to tell her I could not compete" says Alexandra. "Never mind, you'll get over it" the coach replied to her and made her compete. Finally everything turned out well and Alexandra won. She won a bog Persian rug and also some money that she got to keep. The Junior coaches never took any of the money their gymnasts won. Alexandra would soon find out that the Senior coaches would demand 30% of any winnings from their gymnasts.
The inspiring with guilt
The coaches were punishing the gymnasts for different reasons in various ways, one stranger than the other. One of these ways was a kind of mental domination over the gymnasts by inspiring their minds with a feeling of guilt, even when they did not have a reason to feel guilty. One day when Alexandra could not do a skill perfectly, Elizabeta Stoiciu started shouting at her, yelling that she now understood why even her mother had called to say that she had enough of her. "It devastated me to hear Mrs. Eliza tell me that my mother was happy that I did not live at home anymore. I did not believe it and right away angrily ran to the phone to call my mother. Of course my mother denied everything. It was just an attempt to torture me" says Alexandra. The strictness of the way of life in the Junior team was getting worse every day. Their parents were allowed to visit them more and more rarely and they could only call once every ten days.
Booze and women
The most relaxing day was Sunday, when they only had one training session and they could do whatever they wanted for the rest of the day. However this only meant free time, they were not allowed to leave the hostel. On Sunday the other coaches would go home to their families and only one coach remained. The gymnasts were always making fun of the little habits of the coaches. "Some of them used to get drunk and start singing, others came home with one-night girls and they were sneaking them into their room, hoping that we weren't watching"
Elizabeta Stoiciu never stayed with them on Sunday, she was the only coach who went home every week. That gave the other coaches the opportunity to make fun of her, like employees usually do when they have a dictatorial boss.
The ice cream machine
In the summer of 1995 the gymnasts had a great reason for joy. An ice cream firm installed an ice cream machine at the reception of the hostel they were living at. Of course ice cream was absolutely excluded from their menu. A few days later the girls took their chance and left their rooms late at night in order to buy some ice cream in secret. The girls had figured out all kind of hiding places in case a coach showed up. They also had some adults, like the receptionist and their physio therapist looking out for them. Only once the gymnasts were caught at 1 o'clock in the morning with their hands full of ice cream by coach Toma Beuran from the senior team who did not say anything to them at the moment. They were very scared that he would tell their coaches but he never said anything.
The problem came when at the end of summer, the ice cream machine was removed, the girls now had to find other ways to buy their stock of sweets and food. They made a chambermaid their accomplice. When they went to training they would leave money under their pillows and a list of things they needed, starting with biscuits, chocolate up to phone cards and pretzels. She used to buy all these things and hide them under a locker in the gymnasts 'room. In the winter they would hide their food on the balcony in the snow. The tricks of 14 and 15 year old children could not compete with the vigilance of any adult.
