Nadia Comaneci redefined the world of Gymnastics when she secured a perfect 10 at the age of 14 and she went on to win nine Olympic medals in addition to four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship.
Follow Us
Getting a perfect score in any sporting discipline needs a freakish set of skills. For many veterans, achieving that score takes years of toil and hard work. But, when a 14-year-old achieves a perfect score, the world gets stunned. This is what Nadia Comaneci achieved. The achievement is etched in the annals of sporting history as one of the greatest feats in the history of mankind. Her achievement put Romania on the world map when it comes to sports. Even today, the foundation of Gymnastics in the country and traditionally, in the Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union, is credited with the achievement of Comaneci in 1976.
Comaneci came into the world of Gymnastics primarily because she was so full of energy and was very difficult to manage. She had no parental support, with her parents separating early in her life. From the very beginning, Comaneci produced skills in Gymnastics that baffled everyone. It was already established that she would be one of the greatest gymnasts in the history of the sport.
Comaneci, from the very beginning, established a very high benchmark. In the 1975 European Championships, Comaneci secured the gold medal and set out a warning to the rest of the world. The year 1976 represented the crescendo of Comaneci’s dominance. In March 1976, Comăneci competed in the inaugural edition of the American Cup at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. She received rare scores of 10, which signified a perfect routine without any deductions, for her vault in the preliminary stage and for her floor exercise routine in the final of the all-around competition, which she won.
All these performances came up to the 1976 brilliance at the Montreal Olympics. Participating in the Uneven Bars, All-Around and Balance Beams, Comaneci stunned the world and even the time-keeping technology at that time. According to media reports at that time, during the team compulsory portion of the competition, she was awarded the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics for her routine on the uneven bars.
Omega SA, the official Olympics scoreboard manufacturer, had been led to believe that competitors could not receive a perfect ten and had not programmed the scoreboard to display this score. Comaneci’s perfect 10 thus appeared as “1.00,” the only means by which the judges could indicate that she had received a 10.
During the remainder of the Montreal Games, Comăneci earned six additional “10s”. She won gold medals for the individual all-around, the balance beam, and uneven bars. She also won a bronze for the floor exercise and a silver as part of the team all-around. Her performances at the age of 14 have resulted in it being an evergreen record, as the Gymnastics Association changed the age criteria to 16.
Having secured three gold medals, she dominated the world of Gymnastics unlike any athlete in that era. From 1977 to 1980, she was the number one Gymnast in the whole world. She won the 1977 and 1979 European Championships. Comaneci even won the World Cup in 1979 in Tokyo, in both the Vault and Floor Exercises. But, in 1979, Comaneci had a near-death experience.
Just before the 1979 World Championships, Comaneci was hospitalized before the optional portion of the team competition for blood poisoning. This resulted from a cut in her wrist from her metal grip buckle. Against doctors’ orders, she left the hospital and competed on the beam. Comaneci scored a 9.95. Her performance helped give the Romanians their first team gold medal. After her performance, Comaneci spent several days recovering in All Saints Hospital. She had to undergo a minor surgical procedure for the infected hand, which had developed an abscess.
In the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Comaneci defended her gold medal in the balance beam and the floor exercise. But, after that glorious event, life became hell for Comaneci.
After the 1980 Moscow Olympics, in 1981, Comaneci’s coaches decided to defect to the United States. But, Comaneci did not defect. Feeling that she could potentially defect, Romanian authorities restricted her travel. After her retirement in 1984, Comaneci began to feel like a prisoner.
On the night of November 27, 1989, a few weeks before the Romanian Revolution, Comaneci defected with a group of other Romanians, crossing the Hungary–Romania border around Cenad. They were guided by Constantin Panait, a Romanian who later became an American citizen after defecting. Their journey was mostly on foot and at night. They traveled through Hungary and Austria and finally were able to take a plane to the United States.
After moving to the United States, she helped her friend Bart Conner, another Olympic gold medalist, with his gymnastics school. She lived with the family of Paul Ziert and eventually hired him as her manager. Comaneci and Conner initially were just friends but after four years, they were engaged.
She returned to Romania for their 1996 wedding, which was held in Bucharest. This was after the fall of the Communist regime and the establishment of a democratic Romania; the government welcomed her as a national hero. The wedding was televised live throughout Romania, and the couple’s reception was held in the former presidential palace. She received numerous awards. But, in the entire history of the sporting world, Comaneci’s perfect 10 would forever be symbolized for dominance and perfection.
