PICTURED OLYMPIC SISTER WHO WAS BORN WITH NO LEG WAS GIVEN UP FOR ADOPTION AS A BABY

The secret sister of Olympic star Dominique Moceanu, given up for adoption because she had no legs, grew up as a gymnast unaware of who her famous sibling was.
Brought up by an adoptive family in Oblong, Illinois, Jen Bricker won state titles, competed in the Junior Olympics and her idol when she was growing up was the sister she never knew she had.
Now a professional aerial gymnast living in Studio City, California, Ms Bricker, 24, has enjoyed a close relationship with her sister since meeting her for the first time over four years ago.

Jen Bricker, 24, the secret sister of Olympic medal winner Dominique Moceanu, was put up for adoption by her biological parents because she was born with no legs

Dominique Moceanu (left) and her long-lost sister Jen Bricker appear together on ABC's 20/20

'I was kinda in shock, who does this happen to?' said Ms Bricker on ABC's 20/20.
'Whose childhood idol turns into their biological sister?'

 

Brought up by Sharon and Gerald Bricker in the small Illinois town of Oblong, Jen Bricker excelled as a youngster at volleyball, basketball, gymnastics and softball.
However, it was during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that Jen began to watch her idol avidly.

Jen Bricker was given up for adoption the day she was born after Dominique's parents Dimitry and Camelia decided they couldn't afford her medical care

Growing up a keen athlete, Jen specialised in gymnastic tumbling and now is a professional aerial performer

Jen now works at Universal Studios Hollywood as an aerial gymnast and performer

Her parents then realised to their shock who their adopted daughter's sister was.
'When they said her last name, it was like "Whoa, that is the same last name",' said Sharon Bricker, who knew only Moceanu as the name of her adopted child.
'And then they panned out to show the parents in the audience that showed the mother and the father and I realised that they were her parents and Dominique was her sister.'
They decided to keep the information secret from Jen for another eight years until her 16th birthday, and she did not come forward to her sister until four years after that.
'Hi Dominique, my name is Jennifer Bricker, you have been my idol my whole life and you turned out to be my sister,' she wrote in a letter to Dominique two weeks before the famous athlete was due to give birth in late 2006.

Jen Bricker was given to Sharon and Gerald her adoptive parents soon after her birth

Despite her disability her adoptive parents in Oblong, Illinois did not let it affect the way she was brought up

She began to excel at all sports, including high impact tumbling (left) and softball (right)

Jen Bricker, posing with a team mate, even managed to take her participation in her gymnastics to the Junior Olympics

'I realise this might be a lot for you to take in right now. Oh, by the way, I have no legs.'
Causing her sister Dominique to rail against her mother Camelia and father Dimitry, Ms Bricker waited to meet her sister for the first time after 20 years.
'It was the biggest bombshell of my life,' said Ms Moceanu, 30.
'Rage was my first emotion, had my life been a lie? I had this sister that was born who was given up for adoption, and I never knew it.'
However, things improved once the long-lost sisters met.
'She was a Moceanu DNA for sure,' said Ms Moceanu. 'The features, the tones in our voices, our handwriting, the way we laugh and chuckle, it's mind-blowing.'

Jen Bricker stands on the podium as she receives an Illinois state medal for her gymnastics

Explaining that as a girl she grew up as a competitive athlete, Ms Moceanu was stunned.
'Here I was thinking, you did gymnastics? You did volleyball, I was like, who is this girl?' she said.
Growing up with three other brothers in Oblong, Ms Bricker's parents did not let her disability affect her.
'We didn't dwell on the fact that she didn't have legs. Can't was a four letter word she couldn't use,' said Sharon Bricker.
'My parents made me feel everything but handicapped growing up,' explained Jen, = who works for a performing arts group at Universal Studios.

Despite having no legs, Jen Bricker (pictured riding the lower bike) was not allowed to use her disability as an excuse not to compete

Meeting her biological mother Camelia was a tough experience for Jen Bricker, who was born with a genetic condition that left her with no legs.
'Meeting Camelia was intense,' said Ms Bricker.
'I asked her, did you ever think about me? Did you wonder what became of me?
'It is a tough question but I kinda think I deserved it, you know deserved a little bit of an explanation. I felt bad for her because she never even got to hold me.'

Jen Bricker (left) counts herself lucky to have grown up in a happy household, unlike Dominique (right) who divorced her parents in 1998

Interviewed together on 20/20, both sisters were asked what they made of the fact that they both became gymnasts independently of each other thousands of miles apart with no knowledge of each other
'I don't think it is a coincidence, it is nature versus nurture,' said Ms Bricker. 'Nature is so much more dominant than you could ever made me believe before.'
It was yesterday that the Olympic medal-winning gymnast made headlines by revealing she had a secret disabled sister and accused her father of forcing her mother to give the girl up for adoption.
She has claimed that her father Dimitry was responsible for the decision to give the girl away, saying he 'ruled our house with an iron fist'.

Jen Bricker with her mother Sharon and father Gerald and friend in May of this year

The former gymnast writes in her autobiography, previewed on ABC News: 'My father controlled my mother; every meaningful decision was made by him alone.'

She says that her mother Camelia told her she had no choice in the momentous decision, simply saying: 'Your father said that our little girl was born with no legs.
'I never saw my baby. I never held her, never touched her, never even smelled her. I desperately wanted to, but your father told me we had to give her up and that was that.'

After Moceanu was contacted by her sister Jennifer in 2007, she was so furious with her father that she could not bring herself to confront him for weeks - even though he was suffering from the cancer which would kill him the next year.

Discovery: Dominique Moceanu, a gymnast who was part of the U.S. team that won gold at the 1996 Olympics, was 26 when she discovered her parents gave up a younger sister with no legs for adoption

When she did ask him about the secret, he replied: 'When she was born, the doctors told me that we wouldn't be able to afford her medical bills.

'I saw her, and she was born with no legs. We had no money and no insurance. We could barely take care of ourselves and you.'
'It was the biggest bombshell of my life,' Ms Moceanu told ABC's 20/20. 'I had this sister that was born who was given up for adoption, and I never knew it.'
The gymnast had a famously fraught relationship with her parents, divorcing them when she was 17. She was also granted a restraining order against her father, after she accused him of stalking her.

Troubled relationship: She had a famously fraught relationship with her parents Dumitru and Camelia Moceanu, pictured in 1998. When she was 17, she won legal independence from them

But when the 20-year-old woman contacted her with a letter and photographs of herself just over five years ago, Moceanu contacted her parents with questions, ABC News reported.
Dimitry and Camelia Moceanu, who moved from their native Romania in the 1980s and had both been keen athletes, told her the baby girl was born the day after her sixth birthday.
They added that the baby had medical problems that would require expensive care that they could not afford, so they gave her up for adoption. The woman confirmed this story.
'Oh by the way, I have no legs,' she told Moceanu. 'But people forget that within minutes of meeting me.'
The women now meet regularly and have noticed similarities, such as their love of gymnastics. 'The tones in our voices, our handwriting, the way we laugh and chuckle. It's mind-blowing,' Moceanu said.

Winner: Moceanu was just 13 when she won the U.S. National Championships and went on to compete in the Olympics. Her parents, who had both been athletes, moved around the country for her training

Hidden fears: But Moceanu (being kissed by Russian gold medalist Alexei Nemov) was full of shame when she went to collect her medal as she knew her father would berate her for her performance

THE MOCEANUS: FORCED FROM THEIR HOMELAND TO THE U.S.

Moceanu's parents Dimitry and Camelia fled from their home nation of Romania in the 1980s and brought up their daughters in the United States, eventually settling in Houston, Texas for Dominique's training.

They left Romania to escape the brutal regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, the country's repressive communist leader between 1965 and 1989.
After splitting from the Soviet Union, the leader borrowed $13 billion from the West to kick-start its economy. Throughout the 1980s, he sought to pay the debt back by exporting the country's agricultural and industrial production. This saw the standard of living in the country plummet and citizens fought for survival due to poor rations and regular heating, gas and electricity blackouts.
Queues of people desperate for bread lined the streets, while Ceausescu continued to boast on state TV about the high standard of living in his country.
His secret police rigidly controlled free speech and the media and did not tolerate dissent or opposition to his rule.
He was overthrown in December 1989 when anti-government protesters stormed the cities and the Army deflected to their side. He and his wife were captured and tried for mass murder before being killed by firing squad.

The revelation is just one of many made by the Olympic gold medalist in her autobiography Off Balance and in an interview with 20/20, which aired on Friday evening.
She recounts her struggle to reach the top - and how she was plagued by her over-bearing parents, who had both been athletes and wanted their child to have an interest in the same.
'I think [my dad] wanted me to do something that he didn't get a chance to do,' Moceanu said.
They enrolled their daughter in a gymnastics class when she was three, and she took to it at once.
Focusing on the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, her parents took her to try out for famous Olympic gymnastics coaches Bela and Marta Karolyi when she was nine and she was accepted.
After winning the 1995 U.S. National Championships aged just 13, she was accepted for the U.S. Olympics team, despite suffering a stress fracture in her leg.
At the Games, her first three rounds went off perfectly, but she fell twice during her final event - the vault - and she knew she would be punished for it.
As the team collected their gold medals, Moceanu said she knew her father would berate her following the ceremony.
'I have this gold medal around my neck. I wanted to take it off. I was devastated. It was heartbreaking,' she said.
A few years later, she successfully filed for emancipation from her parents. She claimed they had repressed her and squandered her fortune.
She was also granted a restraining order against her father, who had stalked her. She also feared he had hired someone to kill two of her close friends.
Moceanu eventually reconciled with both of her parents. Her father died in 2008 from cancer.

Family: Moceanu has retired from gymnastics and has two children with fellow gymnast, Mike Canales

Today: Moceanu now works as a gymnastics coach and is in regular contact with her adopted sister

An injury kept her from the 2000 Olympics and Moceanu went to college and married a fellow gymnast, Mike Canales, in 2006. They have two children.
After retiring from the sport twice - in 2000 and 2006 - Moceanu now works as a gymnastics coach in the Cleveland area and holds private clinics around the country.

Confrontation: Moceanu's mother said her sister was born when she was six but had expensive medical problems that they could not afford

She has continued to make headlines; in 2008, she claimed her coaches, the Karolyis, had abused her during practices as a child.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, she claimed Martha Karolyi had grabbed her neck and slammed her face into a phone, while Bela Karolyi had twice chided her about her weight in front of national teammates.
'I never, ever objected to hard work,' Moceanu said in the interview.
'What I objected to was Martha grabbing me by the neck, shoving my face into the phone and telling me to call my parents when I hurt my neck in practice.
'I objected to being told to jump onto a scale in front of the 1995 world championship team, of being forced to do 16 uneven bars routines in a row by Martha.
'I was completely embarrassed by Bela in front of the 2000 national training team at camp.
'He completely belittled me and my weight, singled me out and made me feel very small.
'It was unfair treatment. Martha's logic is so false but no one would listen to a 14-year-old. I was never allowed to speak out.'
Martha Karolyi responded that the comments made her feel 'sad' that Moceanu only appeared to remember the hard days of work, rather than the championship wins.
The coaches are credited for the young girl's success. 'Bela Karolyi is the greatest kingmaker we have seen in gymnastics,' said USA sports columnist Christine Brennan,
'And Dominique Moceanu had to have Bela Karolyi to become the gymnast that she was to become.'