Vaulting into Discord

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Camelia Moceanu, however, portrays her daughter as a prima donna. "Everything she asked for she had," says Camelia, referring to an apartment-size bedroom, the gym complex and, last month, a Mercedes on her 17th birthday, which the teenager traded in for a convertible Mustang. Dumitru maintains that while Dominique will not have access to her trust fund until she is 35, her parents built the gym with her knowledge and blessing. Camelia admitted her husband had been strict with Dominique but insisted, "You are strict for their own good, but nothing to the point it was unbearable." Camelia also pointed out that after putting in her day at school, Dominique currently practices only three to four hours, compared with her old eight-hour-a-day Olympic regimen. Dominique's friends, however, warn of the deceptive similarities between real and stage parenting. "I know her parents were tough on her, and I thought they had good intentions," says former teammate Kerri Strug. "But there's a fine line between parents' being supportive and being pushy. A lot of parents try to live through their kids."

It will now be up to a court to decide whether Dominique's parents have crossed that line. As her family's main breadwinner, Dominique will not find it difficult to prove that she can support herself. In August she won the all-around competition at the Goodwill Games. She hopes to compete in the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Last week, though, she sounded more like a child trying desperately to reconcile the very adult goals of professional success and personal happiness. "I hope that after this is all over, we'll be closer than ever," Dominique told the Chronicle. "That would be my dream." But in court, that kind of happiness is often mangled beyond repair.

--With reporting by Deborah Fowler/Houston