Nadia Comaneci
Nadia Elena Comaneci (originally
Comăneci ) (born
November 12,
1961) is a
Romanian gymnast, winner of five
Olympic gold medals, and the first to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She is one of the most well-known gymnasts in the world and is often credited for popularizing the sport, especially in the
United States [
1].
Comaneci was born in
Oneşti,
Romania on
12 November 1961, the daughter of Gheorghe and Ştefania-Alexandrina. Nadia is not a Romanian name; Comaneci's pregnant mother was watching a Russian film in which the heroine was called Nadya, the shortened version of the Russian name Nadyezhda (which means literally "Hope"), and decided that her daughter would be Nadia, too. Comaneci also has a younger brother named Adrian.
Comaneci began gymnastics at the age of 6, after coach
Béla Károlyi spotted her and a friend turning cartwheels in the schoolyard. She was one of the first students at the gymnastics school established by Károlyi and his wife Marta, who would later defect to the United States and become coaches of many great American gymnasts. Unlike many of the other students at the Károlyi school, Comaneci was able to commute from home for many years because she lived in the area.
Comaneci began competing as a member of her hometown team in
1970. In 1971 she participated in her first international competition, a dual junior meet between Romania and Yugoslavia, winning her first all-around title and contributing to the team gold. For the next few years, she competed as a junior in numerous national contests in Romania and additional dual meets with nearby countries such as
Hungary,
Italy and
Poland.
Comaneci's first major international success came at age thirteen, when she nearly swept the
1975 European Championships in
Skien, Norway, winning the all-around and gold medals on every single event except
floor exercise, where she placed second. She continued to enjoy success in other meets in 1975, winning the all-around at the Champions All competition and placing first in the all-around, vault, beam and bars at the Romanian National Championships. At the Pre-Olympic test event in
Montreal, Comaneci won the all-around and the balance beam gold, as well as silvers on the vault, floor and bars behind Soviet
Nelli Kim, a gymnast who would prove to be one of her greatest rivals over the subsequent five years of competition. The international community took notice of Comaneci:
Associated Press named her their 1975 "Athlete of the Year."
At age 14, Comaneci became the star of the
1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Her uneven bars routine in the team competition became the first in Olympic history to receive the perfect score of 10.0; Comaneci would repeat the feat six more times over the course of the Games. She was the first Romanian gymnast to win the all-around title at the Olympics; she still holds the record as being the youngest Olympic all-around champion ever. Comaneci took home a total of five medals from Montreal, winning the balance beam and uneven bars titles, sharing in the team silver and placing third on the floor exercise, in addition to her all-around gold. Back home in Romania, her success led her to be named a "
Hero of Socialist Labor," the youngest Romanian to receive that recognition. She received this award while the country was under the reign of
Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Comaneci successfully defended her European all-around title in 1977, but when questions about the scoring were raised, Ceauşescu ordered the gymnasts to return to Romania. The team followed the orders and controversially walked out of the competition during event finals. An overweight and out of shape Comaneci showed up at the
1978 World Championships. A fall from uneven bars resulted in a 4th place finish in the all-around behind
Elena Mukhina, Nellie Kim and
Natalia Shaposhnikova, but she won the beam title.
In 1979, a newly slim and motivated Comaneci won her third consecutive European overall title, becoming the first gymnast, male or female, to do so. At the
World Championships that December, Comaneci led the field after the compulsory competition but was hospitalized prior to the optional portion of the team competition for blood poisoning due to a cut in her wrist from her metal grip buckle. Against doctors' orders, she left the hospital and competed on beam where she scored a 9.95. Her performance helped give the Romanians their first team gold medal.
She participated in the
1980 Summer Olympics held in
Moscow, placing second in the all-around to
Yelena Davydova. Although many gymnastics fans consider this result controversial, due in part to the fact that the judges deliberated for 28 minutes before posting Comaneci's beam score, Comaneci herself has never disagreed with the results. In her book, she explains her defeat, saying, "That day, Yelena just performed better"
Comaneci defended her Olympic title in the balance beam, tied with Kim for the gold medal in the floor exercise, and her Romanian team finished second.
Comaneci retired from competition in 1981. Her last major competition was at the World University Games in Bucharest in
1981 where she won 5 gold medals. However, there were allegations of bias on the part of the judges, as half the judges were from Romania. Comaneci, for instance, scored a perfect 10.0 on a vault that was only worth 9.9.
In 1981, Comaneci participated in a gymnastics exhibition tour in the
United States. During the course of the tour, her coaches, Béla and Marta Károlyi, along with the Romanian team choreographer
Geza Pozar, defected. Upon her return to Romania, Comaneci's actions were strictly monitored. She was granted leave to attend the 1984 Olympics in
Los Angeles, but she was heavily guarded and supervised for the entire trip. Aside from the journey to the Olympics, Comaneci was forbidden to leave the country for any reason. "Life..." she wrote in her autobiography, "took on a new bleakness."
Working in Romania, between
1984 and
1989, Comaneci was a member of the
Romanian Gymnastics Federation and helped coach the Romanian junior gymnasts. In November of 1989, a few weeks before the Revolution, she defected with a group of other young Romanians. Her overland journey took her through Hungary, Austria, and finally, to the United States.
After settling in the United States, Comaneci spent most of her time touring and promoting lines of gymnastics apparel and aerobic equipment. She also dabbled in modeling, appearing in ads for wedding dresses and Jockey underwear. In 1994, she became engaged to US gymnast
Bart Conner, whom she had met for the first time in 1976 at the American Cup, and returned to Romania for the first time since her defection. Comaneci and Conner were married in Romania on
April 271996; the ceremony was heavily followed by the Romanian media. On
June 29,
2001, Comaneci became a
naturalized citizen of the
United States.
Comaneci is active in many charities and international organizations. In 1999, she became the first athlete to be invited to speak at the
United Nations to launch the Year 2000 International Year of Volunteers. Comaneci is Vice-Chair of the Board Of Directors of International
Special Olympics and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the
Muscular Dystrophy Association. She is also the founder of a charity clinic in
Bucharest that will provide low-cost health care and aid to street children and orphans.
In the world of gymnastics, Comaneci is the Honorary President of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, the Honorary President of Romanian Olympic Committee, Ambassador of Sports of Romania and a member of the
International Gymnastics Federation Foundation. She and her husband own the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy, the Perfect 10 Production Company and several sports equipment shops. They are also the editors of
International Gymnast magazine. Additionally, Comaneci and Conner have provided television commentary for many gymnastics meets, most recently the 2005 World Championships in
Melbourne.
Comaneci has received two
Olympic Order awards from the
IOC. She was inducted into the
International Gymnastics Hall of Fame She was the highest ranked gymnast in
Sports Illustrated's list of the Top 100 Greatest Female Athletes, coming in ninth. [
2]
In
December 2003, her book,
Letters To A Young Gymnast, was published. The memoir answers questions that she has received in letters from fans.
Comaneci and her husband welcomed their first child, a baby boy named Dylan Paul Conner, on
June 3,
2006 in
Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. The baby was three weeks early, weighing in only at 4lbs 10 ozs, and measuring 17 inches long, but it is confirmed by Nadia's husband
Bart Conner that she and her newborn son are doing well and are expected to go home within a few days.
* On the uneven bars, Comaneci performed her own release move, a kip to front salto. The skill is named after her in the women's
Code of Points and, as of 2005, is rated as an 'E' element. Only a handful of international gymnasts are capable of performing the Comaneci successfully.
* Comaneci was the first gymnast to successfully perform an aerial walkover and an aerial cartwheel-two back handsprings flight series on the beam.
*In their highlight montages of her performances during the 1976 Olympic Games,
CBS used the theme song to the
American soap opera The Young and the Restless. Afterward, the melody was renamed "
Nadia's Theme" after her. Her floor exercise music was a medley of the songs "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Shake, Shake, Shake Senora."
*At the Montreal Olympics, the scoreboards were not equipped to display scores of 10.0--so Nadia's perfect marks were reported on the boards as 1.0 instead. Reportedly, Nadia initially believed that she had actually scored a 1.0.
*
Bios at romanian-gymnastics.com*
nadiacomaneci.com Unofficial Nadia Comaneci fan site
*
Perfect 10 performance in 1976 Olympics (Google Video)
*
Comaneci still amazed by 1976 feat, article from
Sports Illustrated website
*
List of competitive results at Gymn Forum*
Whatever Happened to Nadia Comaneci?
