50 stunning Olympic moments No5: Nadia Comaneci scores a perfect 10 | Simon Burnton | Sport | The Guardian 50 stunning Olympic moments 50 stunning Olympic moments No5: Nadia Comaneci scores a perfect 10 The 14-year-old Romanian became a global star at Montreal in 1976, achieving perfection and crowning a golden era for gymnastics. Click here for a gallery of Comaneci’s performance Wednesday 14 December 2011 04.23 EST First published on Wednesday 14 December 2011 04.23 EST Share on Messenger Close The Swiss company Omega has had responsibility for the timing and scoring of Olympic events since 1932. Before the 1976 Games they contacted the International Olympic Committee with a question about the scoreboards they were constructing for the gymnastics. Would it be better, they asked, to replace the traditional boards, which had room for three digits such as, say, 9.50, or 9.85, with one that could display four digits, such as 10.00?

Ten to watch: meet Team GB's sporting superheroes Read more “I was told, ‘a 10.00 is not possible,’” recalls Daniel Baumat, now the director of Swiss Timing, which like Omega is part of the Swatch Group. “So we only did three digits.” On Sunday 18 July, the second day of the Montreal Games, a 14-year-old gymnast called Nadia Comaneci made her first appearance. Her routine on the uneven bars that day was flawless, and the judges agreed. One of them approached Baumat, who was working in the arena. “She asked what to do. I said that they could either put up 1.00 or .100 but that there was no possibility for a 10.00. Just as the federation had told me.” Comaneci received a perfect 1.00. It is easy to see why the IOC considered 10.00, a score never previously achieved in Olympic competition, to be unachievable. By the time she left Montreal the tiny Romanian had done it seven times.

In 1972 the performances of the young Russian Olga Korbut had thrust gymnastics out of the Olympic shadows; in 1976 Comaneci stepped into that spotlight and created a legend. Korbut must take some of the credit not just for the attention Comaneci received, but for the quality of her performances. Korbut and her Belorussian coach, Renald Knysh, had struck up a fearsome rivalry not just with Comaneci and her coach, Bela Karolyi, but also with the Russian Ludmila Tourischeva and her coach, Vladislav Rastorotsky. The result was a period of huge technical improvement and innovation, which reached its pinnacle in Comaneci’s performances in Canada. Four times she produced perfect routines in the asymmetic or uneven bars, and three times on the beam. She won three gold medals, for the bars, the beam and the all-around competition, as well as a team silver and a bronze for her floor exercise. The only possible criticism was that she didn’t seem to enjoy it very much. “She seemed,” the Guardian wrote a few years later, “almost inhuman in her exactness.” There were many possible reasons for that.

Comaneci had been born in 1961 in Onesti, a town in the Carpathian mountains, to a car mechanic called Gheorghe and his factory-worker wife, Stefania-Alexandrina. Her talent was spotted at the age of six, when she joined the boarding school for young gymnasts run by Karolyi and his wife, Marta. Karolyi was a former junior boxing champion, and a member of the national hammer-throwing team. He was to become one of gymnastics’ most successful coaches, both in Romania and again following his defection to the US in 1981, where he coached the 1984 Olympic champion Mary Lou Retton (whose perfect 10 on the vault remains one of America’s golden Olympic memories), the 1991 world champion Kim Zmeskal and the victorious 1996 Olympic team. But some of the methods apparently used by the Karolyis have caused controversy. In 2008 Emelia Eberle, who joined the school in 1976 aged 12 and now lives in the United States under the name Trudi Kollar, said: “It was brutal.

Nobody’s perfect, so obviously we did mistakes. And we, you know, just got smacked everywhere from Bela – on all our body parts. He has huge hands and it hurts.” In 2002 another Romanian gymnast, Rodica Dunca, told ProSport magazine: “On certain days we were hit until blood was pouring out of our nose. You can say it was a concentration camp, or even a prison.” Another gymnast, Ecaterina Szabo, said that after the Karolyis defected “I was so happy that I’d escaped them. I’ll never forget the slaps in the face and the beatings I got from Bela Karolyi.” Geza Pozsar, the Romanian team choreographer who defected with Karolyi, has admitted that he “saw the beating and the abuse”. There is a useful blogpost about the scandal here . Asked in 2008 to comment on the allegations, Karolyi said: “I ignore it. I’m not even commenting. These people are really trash.” As for Comaneci, at one point while under his care she was rushed to hospital, apparently after drinking bleach.

“I didn’t try to die,” she later insisted, “I drank shampoo by mistake.” She admits, though, that the regime was extremely demanding. “Life is tough for everybody,” she said in 2004. “It would be great if you could discover a way of working very little and being successful, but there isn’t one.” Comaneci’s ability was quickly apparent. Her first international competition as an “adult” came in April 1975, when she became the youngest ever competitor in the International Champions All Tournament at Wembley. “At 13 years old Nadia Comaneci is still both physically too exuberant and spiritually too intense to be the perfect gymnast,” wrote David Hunn in the Guardian, “but give her another year or two and there may be no confining the exquisite talent of this tiny Romanian girl.” It did not even take that long. The following month she won four out of a possible five gold medals at the European Championships in Skien, Norway, and took a silver in the fifth. And then came Montreal. Though she did not retire until 1984, Comaneci could never return to the heights she reached as a 14-year-old.

When she came back to Wembley in 1977 the Guardian reported that she “looked as if her gymnastics had become a perfunctory chore rather than an expression of zestful grace”. In Montreal she was 4ft 11in tall and weighed 6st 2lb; by the time she arrived at the world championships in Strasbourg two years later she was seven inches taller and a stone and a half heavier. She won a gold on the beam and a silver in the vault, but admitted that she was “a bit saturated” with gymnastics and said she planned to retire in 1980. She had lost 10lb by the time of her appearance at the World Cup in Tokyo in 1979 – Romanian officials said it had only been “puppy fat”, but journalists described her as looking “frighteningly emaciated”. She got a perfect score in the floor exercise and changed her mind about retirement. By the time of the Moscow Olympics, her first appearance in Russia, the little girl who caught the world’s imagination four years earlier had become a young woman.

The Guardian’s Frank Keating wrote that “she has filled and lengthened, no longer a kittenish little cog whirling about, but a darkly sombre, concentrating Carpathian 18-year-old who wears a bra and has to shave her armpits”, prompting a bumper postbag from readers who wondered what her lingerie and personal hygiene had to do with anything. Judges’ scoring brought her glory in 1976, but it was to bring infamy in 1980. She took to the beam, the final event of the combined exercises competition, needing 9.95 to retain her title. Her routine was not perfect, and neither was her landing, but the six judges immediately launched into a heated argument, which lasted nearly half an hour and ended only when Ellen Berger, the East German president of the International Gymnastics Technical Committee, decided that she should get 9.85. This left her tied for second – with an East German – while gold went to a Russian, Alena Davydova. Then in the individual exercises, the mark displayed for her floor routine – 9.00 – was mysteriously upgraded to 9.50.

Berger explained that Britain’s judge, Helen Thomas, had pressed the wrong button, registering 9.50 when she had intended 10, and the score had simply been recalculated in line with her original intentions. A British official denied the button-pressing story and said that the recalculation followed a Romanian team protest. She won gold in the beam, but only after a 10-minute delay in marking her Russian rival, involving exactly the same group of officials who had been involved in the first controversy. When the local favourite’s mark of 9.85 came up, the crowd booed lustily. She won two gold and two silver medals, but wouldn’t compete in Russia again. When the world championships were held there the following year Comaneci was fully fit, had just won five golds at the University Games in Bucharest and travelled with the Romanian team, but she refused to compete.

Though she was certainly a celebrity, used by the Romanian government both for propaganda and to raise funds – it was on a fundraising tour of America, which brought in $250,000 for the state (but just $1,000 for the star), that Karolyi defected – the style of Comaneci’s life in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu’s brutal regime is disputed. Newsweek once alleged that she had “lived like a rock star”, detailing her palatial house and extensive staff, but Comaneci said: “I had to live like everybody else. I had to stand in lines, and miss out, and be followed by the police. I had no money, no special treatment. It was all rumours.” Her mother has said that Nadia was raped by the dictator’s son, Nicu, when she was 17 and still a virgin, though Nadia herself has denied this. “My life drastically changed after the Karolyi defection,” she said. “I started to feel like a prisoner.

In reality, I’d always been one.” In 1989, just weeks before the fall of the Ceausescus, she walked for six hours through pitch black, muddy woodland to escape across the border to Hungary, and thence to Austria and finally, upon the aptly named Pan-Am jet Liberty Bell, to the United States. In fact true liberty was delayed until she broke from the apparently abusive clutches of the man who masterminded her escape, a self-employed roofer called Constantin Panait, the following year. Now 50, she lives in Oklahoma with her husband, Bart Conner, who won two gymnastics golds for the US in the 1984 Games. Together they run a gymnastics academy, alongside several other businesses. It is no longer (officially) possible to compete in the Olympics at 14, or, following changes to the scoring system in 2008, to score a perfect 10. There are very few Olympians who can say with absolute certainty that their achievements will never be equalled, but Nadia Comaneci is one.

Pinterest What the Guardian said: 20 July 1976 The distinction which Romania’s Nadia Comaneci has received in the team gymnastics championship here is to be applauded by the other participants. Only the great gymnasts have received this accolade in a sport where the competitors are more discriminating than the most pedantic of judges. But when the 14-year-old European champion received a maximum 10 points for her performance on the asymmetric bars the watching competitors joined the 18,000 crowd in the applause. Louis Smith v Max Whitlock, Rio's hottest rivalry Read more It is believed to be the first time a perfect score has ever been achieved for any apparatus at the Games. Miss Comaneci’s precision on the beam and floor exercises is exact. She moves with measured care although this is obscured by the ease which is such a feature of her performance. On one handstand she swung her legs overhead so tantalisingly slowly that it seemed as if she did not have the momentum to reach the position. But she did – and then lingered there, as if to emphasise the smoothness of the action before continuing her routine.

In addition, Miss Comaneci has the temperament which makes her such a rational favourite for Wednesday’s combined exercises final. Unlike Russia’s Olga Korbut, the charm in her routine is not obvious, she does not appear to be trying to allure the judges or spectators and this restraint is all the more effective because of it. Larissa Latynina, the Russian coach and former Olympic champion, complained that the maximum score was not deserved because Miss Comaneci should not have taken two steps on dismounting from the bars but only one, which is neater. Although there is some validity in her remark, it was probably motivated by a wish to restore confidence in the girls she is advising. Neither Ludmila Tourischeva, the 1972 Olympic champion, Olga Korbut, nor Russia’s current No1, Nellie Kim, seem likely to disturb Miss Comaneci’s dominance in this form. However, although Miss Comaneci leads the qualifying competition after the compulsory exercises, Russia’s quantity of talented competitors means that they are still ahead in the team event.

What she said “Everybody was surprised to see a 14-year-old being able to do the level of gymnastics that I did, but even I didn’t know that I was extraordinary at the time.” Nadia COMANECI - Olympic Gymnastics Artistic | Romania Nadia COMANECI Games Attended 1976 , 1980 Gymnast Nadia Comaneci became the queen of the 1976 Montreal Games when she was awarded the first perfect score. Early promise Nadia Comaneci took up the sport of gymnastics aged six, becoming one of the first students at a school founded by coach Béla Károlyi. In 1975, 13-year-old Comaneci won gold in every event at the European Championships except the floor exercise. Perfection A year later in Montreal, she became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded the perfect score of 10.0 for her performance on the uneven bars. She went on to record the perfect 10.0 six more times and became the youngest all-around Olympic gold medallist ever.

More Olympic success Comaneci’s career over the next four years was slightly less spectacular, judged against her own high standards. At the 1980 Olympic Games, she won her fourth and fifth golds but finished second in the all-around competition behind Yelena Davydova. Comaneci retired a year later, leaving her with a career haul of nine Olympic medals. Retirement After her retirement, Comaneci was rarely allowed to travel outside her country. She defected to the United States in 1989. She has since married 1984 Olympic gold medallist Bart Conner, a gymnast she first met in the 1970s. The My Hero Project - Nadia Comaneci NADIA COMANECI by Claire from Peterborough, Ontario, Canada ( Nadia Comaneci is known as one of the evolutionists of the sport of gymnastics, but to me she is more than that. The traits that she has demonstrated throughout her life, such as courage and bravery, are what make her my hero. Nadia Comaneci was born on November 12th, 1961 in Romania.

From an early age, she showed obvious passion, ability and talent for the sport of gymnastics. As a child, Nadia practiced very hard at a gymnastics school, commuting back and forth to see her parents. Though this seems like a childhood most would not want, Nadia had a goal in mind: to make it to the Olympics. ( Finally this dream came true at the 1976 Olympics held in Montreal, Canada. At the young age of fourteen, she went into the biggest competition of her lifetime, though at that time she didn't know what an impact she would have on the world of gymnastics. During the team portion of the competition, Nadia Comaneci stunned the world and the judges with her routine on the uneven bars. The score came up as a 1.00 out of a perfect 10.00, but she really scored a perfect score. The scoreboards couldn't hold that many numbers because people thought it was impossible. Over the course of the Olympics, Nadia scored six other perfect tens on the uneven bars and the balance beam.

At the end of the event Nadia Comaneci went home with the all-around gold medal around her neck, as well as gold medals on the uneven bars and balance beam, a silver medal in the team competition and a bronze medal on floor. Comaneci had done the impossible and she was still very young. In fact, not only was Nadia Comaneci the first gymnast to score a perfect score at the Olympics, but she still holds the record for youngest person ever to win the Olympic Gold Medal in gymnastics. Once most gymnasts win the Olympics and reach their goal and life dream, they retire from the sport, but not Nadia. Nadia still loved the sport and had even more drive to go bigger and better. Another big competition of Nadia's was the European Championships, which she won three years in a row. In 1980 Comaneci returned to the Olympics hosted in Moscow, Russia. Now at the age of 18, the sport of gymnastics had changed, and Nadia had some fierce competition.

In spite of this, Nadia Comaneci came back very strong and went home with a gold medal on the balance beam and the floor exercise, and a silver medal in the All-around and Team Competitions. Though it seems Nadia Comaneci's life was full of greatness and happiness, she also had a lot of struggles that she had to overcome to get where she is today. To even get to the Olympics, Nadia Comaneci had to practice long hard hours. At the young age of six she trained six days a week for four hours a day. That is 24 hours a week, at an age when most girls are playing with Barbies. During the period after the 1976 Olympics, and the 1978 World Championships, Nadia Comaneci had a very tough time with not only her gymnastics career, but her personal life. The Romanian Gymnastics Federation made Comaneci switch to a new gymnastics club in a new city. On top of having to leave her family, she was also dealing with the stress of her parents' divorce. Over time at her new gymnastics center she grew very unhappy and became very out of shape.

After a bad competition at the Worlds, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation permitted Nadia to return to her old gymnastics club. After a long and amazing gymnastics career, accomplishing more than any other gymnast, Nadia Comaneci retired from the sport of gymnastics in 1981. After Comaneci's gymnastics career was over, she went on to pursue many more great things. (nadiacomaneci.com) After settling down with her husband, she started charity work. Comaneci is currently on the board of directors for Special Olympics, and has done a lot of work with disabled children through sports. Comaneci also set up her own clinic called the Nadia Comaneci Children's Clinic, in Bucharest Romania, that provides low-cost or free medical care for children, as well as social support. Comaneci is still very much involved in the sport of gymnastics. She is the Honourary President of the Romanian Gymnastics Committee. She and her husband also own and run a gymnastics center, have several gymnastics equipment shops and lines, and edit a gymnastics magazine. Nadia Comaneci is my hero because she set out for her dream and accomplished it.

She showed me that the impossible is, in fact, possible, and to always work hard at gymnastics, as well as in life. To many in the world, a perfect ten is just a number, but to a gymnast, it is everything about the sport. Nadia Comaneci was also a fighter, and never gave up even when she had a hard time. She showed me that when life gets tough, you just keep going and never give up. Nadia Comaneci's work with the Clinic in Bucharest is also something that I really look up to. One day I would like to achieve a career as rewarding as Nadia Comaneci's. Whenever I am at gymnastics and having a bad practice, or not trying, I think of Nadia Comaneci and her perfect 10.00 and it pushes me to do more. Because of her achievements, it makes me feel that I can take one more turn, and make one more correction, so that I, too, will end up at the top of the podium with a smile on my face.

Most 10 scores at Olympics: world record set by Nadia Comaneci July 18, 2008 Most 10 scores at Olympics: world record set by Nadia Comaneci [July 18] MONTREAL, Canada--With a total of seven perfect ten scores at Montreal 1976 Games, Olympic legend Nadia Comaneci set a world record for the most 10 scores at a single edition of the Olympic Games. She captured the hearts of the world and became the first gymnast in history to know what it's like to be perfect- setting also the world record for the first award of a score of perfect 10 at an Olympics Games gymnastic event. World Record Academy will send to Nadia a special Gold-Sealed World Record Certificate and her name will be listed for ever in all our future Book of World Recordss. July 18 is also declared by the Records Academy as the World's Records Day, a day to remember one of the most beautiful evolution in the history of Olympics. Before 1976, no male or female had ever received a perfect score in any Olympic gymnastics event.

And then came Nadia Comaneci, all 4-foot-11, 86 pounds of her. The 14-year-old Romanian dazzled the judges in Montreal to the point where they couldn't help but give her a perfect 10. And they didn't stop there, for not only did Comaneci receive the first perfect score, she then proceeded to get six more! ABC Television set her performance to music, using a theme from a popular American soap opera, and the song was eventually renamed "Nadia's Theme". Times magazine posted huge photo of Nadia in front cover page, "She's Perfect!" with a very small photo of the the first photo of Mars... 14 years old Nadia Comaneci became the only person shown in the cover page of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated magainzes at the same time, not to mentioned millions of press and magazines covers around the world. The record breaking moment came with Comaneci's performance on the uneven bars. However, the judging equipment was not equipped to display the four digits of a 10.00 score, so the scoreboard simply showed 1.00.

The crowd soon understood the meaning of the score when the announcer declared, "Ladies and gentleman, for the first time in Olympic history, Nadia Comaneci has received the score of a perfect ten," reported Septima Green in Top 10 Women Gymnasts.The perfect gymnast bitting the perfect machine! Nadia Comaneci earned a total of seven perfect ten scores at those Olympic Games. She won three gold medals for the all-around competition, uneven bars, and balance beam. She also won a silver medal for the team competition and a bronze medal for the floor exercise. Four of her seven perfect scores, including the first one, came on the uneven bars, which as you might imagine, was one of the three events Comaneci struck gold. But it was on the balance beam that she truly showed off her skill. The beam is considered one of the most difficult Olympic events, with gymnasts performing pirouettes and backflips on a beam measuring just four inches across. All Nadia did was record three more perfect scores and her second gold medal. Comaneci became the first Romanian to win the all-around title and she was also the youngest all-around champion at 14 years old.

Once Comaneci broke the barrier, it became easier over the years. Then, after the 1992 Olympics, those 10s disappeared. Not one has been scored in major international competition since. Bela Karolyi, maybe the most internationally famous coach and booster of the sport, believes that maybe a perfect 10 is really more than just a number. "It gives the flavour and spice to the sport that we need so much. Just the recognition of the performance," he said. That moment almost surely won't be repeated this year, or anytime soon. The perfect 10 has slowly, perhaps sadly, filtered its way out of gymnastics, a victim of increased difficulty in events, tougher judging and, some critics say, maybe some hard-headedness and ignorance among those who run it. "Actually, I think they thought there were too many 10 scores," said Karolyi who, along with her husband Bela, coached Comaneci and Retton during their perfect-10 moments.

Where perfection used to be something that could be sensed or felt, as well as seen, it is now something that must be measured according to the rules of the very strict, very long, very complex Code of Points to which each judge and gymnast must adhere. In the past, gymnasts used to strive for a perfect 10; these days, they strive to develop a routine with a "start value" of 10, meaning it could conceivably earn a perfect score if it were done flawlessly. U.S. champion Carly Patterson said no gymnast she knows ever goes out there thinking about scoring a 10 these days. "You'd have to be beyond perfect," she said. In 1989, Nadia Comaneci defected from Romania and settled in North America. She has since married American Olympic gymnastic medallist Bart Conner. 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.

She is currently the Vice-Chair of the Board Of Directors of the International Special Olympics and Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. In the world of gymnastics, Nadia 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. In 2006, Thirty years after Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci wowed Olympic judges at the Montreal Olympics, a tribute to that "Perfect 10" performance, made by "ShanFan" (Heather Gibson)-a US gymnastics fan, has been beamed toward the stars via the Deep Space Communications Network. Deep Space general manager Jim Lewis said in the news release. "The way we see it, if there is someone out there receiving radio waves from this planet, Earth is getting some pretty bad press. Basically, they'd be seeing what we're seeing on the evening news: war, famine, strife and struggle.

Perhaps now they will see there is also unmatched beauty and grace on our little green ball as well." Nadia's husband for Sports Illustrated: "Everyone wants to remember her as this 14 -year-old, ponytailed little girl. She's not that anymore." ...But for those who saw her in '76, she always will be. Nadia Comaneci still doing handstands - SPORT - The Hindu Nadia Comaneci still doing handstands Nadia Comaneci still doing handstands London: July 19, 2016 00:00 IST Updated: July 19, 2016 06:09 IST Share Article July 19, 2016 00:00 IST Updated: July 19, 2016 06:09 IST Legendary Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci said she still vividly remembers her historic Olympic performance at the 1976 Montreal Games where she famously became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10.

Comaneci won a total of nine medals, five gold, at the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Games, and the 54-year-old said her memories of those moments remain clear exactly four decades on. “I vividly can feel the time when I was walking in the arena and the noise,” Comaneci said. Comaneci, who runs a gymnastics academy in the United States with her husband, former US Olympic champion Bart Conner, said she’s still a keen enthusiast of the sport that made her famous worldwide. “I practise when nobody is in the gym,” she told Laureus.com , speaking in her role supporting the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation. “I flip a little cartwheel, something safe that’s close to the ground. “It’s all in there, the technique, everything is there. I have to kick a handstand every day, wherever I am,” she added. — AFP More In Nadia Comaneci Follow DL on Nadia Comaneci Was she as big a deal (as a sports figure in the '70s) as she is still made out to be? Do any of you remember watching her perform gymnastics at the '76 games or afterwards?

by Anonymous reply 118 12/25/2015 I remember. She was pretty well known, but I what I remember the most was Gilda Radner's spoof of her on Saturday Night Live. by Anonymous reply 1 01/12/2015 When I was a kid I thought Nadia Comaneci and Natasia Kinsky were the same person, and I couldn't figure out why she was hired star in Tess and that everyone kept saying how good she was in it. Of course this was when I was too young to know about Polanski's reputation and that him hiring a prepubescent gymnast was entirely possible. by Anonymous reply 3 01/12/2015 What I remember most about her is she was only 14 at the time. It seemed so young to me. Nowadays Olympic athletes that young are a dime a dozen, but I think she kind of ushered in the era of young athletes. by Anonymous reply 5 01/12/2015 Nadia was definitely a big deal back then. She was a petite 14 year-old girl in pigtails who rarely ever smiled.

At the '76 Olympics, she scored the first perfect 10 in modern Olympics gymnastic history. [italic]Nobody[/italic] had ever scored a ten before, not even the male gymnasts. And then she went and did it six more times! It was quite an achievement. At 14 years old. That's why she became a sports superstar. One of news networks then put together a slo-mo montage of her greatest moments and set it to a song from "Bless the Beasts and Children." That song became closely associated with her, was renamed "Nadia's Theme," and became an inescapable top ten hit. That definitely added to her legacy. by Anonymous They mentioned her in Love At First Bite. by Anonymous reply 7 01/12/2015 [quote]One of news networks then put together a slo-mo montage of her greatest moments and set it to a song from "Bless the Beasts and Children." That song became closely associated with her, was renamed "Nadia's Theme," and became an inescapable top ten hit. That definitely added to her legacy. I still have the 45.

Bought it when it was released in 76. by Anonymous Huge deal till Mary Lou Retton. by Anonymous reply 11 01/13/2015 That journalist did a real hatchet-job on her in the 1989 article. Sure, she wasn't cuddly, but do you expect someone who just survived communism and the Ceausescu (sp.?) dictatorship to be all smiles and morals? by Anonymous Is she still married to Bart Conner? by Anonymous I always thought she was Italian. Comaneci sounds Italian to me. by Anonymous reply 15 01/13/2015 "Nadia's Theme" is/was also the theme to "The Young and the Restless." (I don't know if it was before or after it was renamed.) by Anonymous 01/13/2015 [quote]I don't know if it was before or after it was renamed.

It used to be called "Cotton's Dream" from the movie [italic]Bless the Beasts and the Children[/italic]: by Anonymous reply 17 01/13/2015 Wasn't the story that she was the Domme and Bart was the sub? I think she went pro as a Domme, don't know about him. by Anonymous 01/13/2015 R16 from Wikipedia: [quote]De Vorzon and Botkin Jr. composed and wrote lyrics for the melody, originally titled "Cotton's Dream", as incidental music for the 1971 theatrical film Bless the Beasts and Children. The instrumental version was commercially released on that film's soundtrack album on A&M Records. The soundtrack also included "Lost", a song set to the same melody but with different lyrics, performed by Renee Armand. [quote]Botkin Jr. later composed a rearranged version of the instrumental theme for the U.S. TV soap opera The Young and the Restless, which debuted on March 26, 1973, on the CBS television network. Although a soundtrack album for the TV series was released by P.I.P.

Records in 1974, the LP only contained a cover version by easy listening group Sounds of Sunshine, rather than the original recording by De Vorzon and Botkin. by Anonymous reply 19 01/13/2015 Bart Connor wanted to open a gymnast academy - but was told in no uncertain terms that parents weren't going to send their boys there unless he got "married." She needed some way to stay in this country legally and voila - instant happy couple. by Anonymous I am jealous of her for getting that cute Bart Conner dick every night. by Anonymous reply 24 01/13/2015 There's a good book about gymnastics and figure-skating called "Little Girls In Pretty Boxes: the making and breaking of elite gymnasts and figure skaters." Apparently, the training these girls go through to get to the Olympics is incredibly punishing physically and emotionally. Some, like Comeneci and Mary Lou Retton, were able to withstand the overwhelming pressures and physical demands to become Olympic stars. But a lot of the girls were crushed by injuries and the emotional abuse heaped on them by their awful coaches.

Bela Karolyi was especially hard on his gymanasts, forcing them to train while suffering serious injuries, berating them constantly to "motivate" them. It worked with some of them, but for others that approach backfired big time. Poor Christy Henrich was told by a coach that she needed to lose weight (she was 4'11 and weighed 90 pounds). She just about stopped eating after that. She became hopelessly anorexic and died at age 22, weighing less than 60 pounds. by Anonymous reply 25 01/13/2015 It wasn't until YouTube came around that I saw the real Nadia Comaneci perform, but she was always mentioned at every Olympics when Romanians perform. She's like their patron saint. Even now the Romanians girls are thrilled when Nadia comes over to talk to them. Back in the 80s I was obsessed with the 1984 TV movie Nadia. Who knows if any of the behind the scenes stuff was true. They certainly didn't consult Nadia. My weight travels up and down 10 pounds depending on my exercise level.

Whenever it gets too high I feel like Nadia when she was too fat to stay on the uneven bars. by Anonymous reply 26 01/13/2015 Oh, yeah, I watched her - she was amazing - she won gold after gold after gold. She was a HUGE deal in 1976, but fizzled out soon thereafter. I mean, that would have been the pinnacle of almost anyone's life. by Anonymous reply 27 01/13/2015 When I saw her name on this thread, I first thought she was an Olympic ice skater. by Anonymous 01/13/2015 The video (at link) of Nadia's bar routines give me chills (I know, Mary!). No gymnastics expert, but she does some crazy skills on those bars. It looks so different from the recent bar routines at the last Olympics. by Anonymous reply 29 01/13/2015 "No gymnastics expert, but she does some crazy skills on those bars. It looks so different from the recent bar routines at the last Olympics." Actually, the routines are much more difficult now.

The gymnasts keep getting smaller and younger, the better to perform the routines. You have to have the body of a little girl to do them. The hard training that these girls go through stunts their growth and makes them almost midget short. Their careers are often over by the time they're twenty or even sooner than that. Being a gymnast seems like hell. by Anonymous reply 30 01/13/2015 [quote]The hard training that these girls go through stunts their growth and makes them almost midget short No, that'a a fallacy. You think gymnasts are stunted and small because the ones you see are short. You see them because you only see gymnasts when it's a large competition. Those there are smaller make it further in the sport because that's the body type that excels. Being taller and heavier makes it more difficult to excel in Elite gymnastics. by Anonymous Gilda Radner as Nadia was hysterical. "Many young Romanian girls lose our chichnos to the parallel bars." by Anonymous reply 32 01/13/2015 Nadia upped the difficulty level tremendously from what the previous gymnasts were doing at the time.

She also had nerves of steel and never made a mistake. I guess part of the latter was due to the endless repetition of her routines until they became second nature (as someone earlier noted). Nadia's best friend and teammate Teodora Ungureanu was a prettier and more charismatic girl, but she got little attention due to Nadia's perfection. Teodora finished second in the Unevens bars to Nadia and third on the balance beam behind Nadia and Olga Korbut at the Montreal Olympics. by Anonymous So Bart Conner's a 'mo? by Anonymous reply 36 01/13/2015 R36 yes. I was a former Elite and he'd come to clinics all the time. I know a few teammates that messed around with him. by Anonymous 01/13/2015 [quote]he seems closeted Any gay man who says he wouldn't fuck him senseless is either a liar or a bottom. by Anonymous reply 38 01/13/2015 There was a cool thing about Nadia that she talked about once. Her number was 73 at the 76 Olympics.

7x3 = 21 and it was the 21st Olympics. 7+3 = 10, which she scored the first of, she also scored 7 tens and one 3 Gold Medals. by Anonymous [quote]She's no Olga Korbut. This is true... Nadia was never a drug addicted house burglar. by Anonymous 01/13/2015 Nadia was a huge hit at the Olympics. She was 14 years old. I don't know why people are saying she didn't smile. Her floor routine was adorable. She was also so petite that everything she did was like watching a little doll do it. And the way she poked her little butt out when she finished was the icing on the cake. Olga Korbut had been relatively cute in 1972 but by 1976, not so much. I remember ABC really playing up the fact that Romania was one the Warsaw Pact nations that really wasn't pary of the evil Soviety empire, so little Olga with her CCCP branding was not so popular anymore.

The All Around final had this big butch Soviet named Ludmila as her rival and Olga was really a tragic figure, but Nadja barely in front , so the final was hugely dramatic. Back then there were very few TV channels, so the Olympics were big entertainment and round the clock coverage on ABC was some of the best sports coverage that there was. And don't forget Bela with his bear hugs, right there with Nadja. by Anonymous [quote]guy she looked like a $5 hooker. Horrible purplish makeup, too much of it. AKA she looked like an Eastern European. by Anonymous reply 48 01/13/2015 Nadia inadvertently helped me come out as gay to my mom in 1976. You see, I was all of 7-years-old in that summer and became a huge fan of Nadia's after she scored her perfect 10s. My parents had a narrow, wooden sitting-bench out back in the yard (a little wider than a balance beam) that I used to mimic Nadia's leaps and cartwheels. When I eventually did come out as gay, years later, my mom was not surprised.

She claimed she knew the moment she saw me imitating Nadia and leaping on my pretend balance beam. Thanks Nadia! reply 49 01/13/2015 I had a huge crush on Ludmilla and Olfa's teammate Nelli Kim. She was Asian (I think she was from Uzbekistan) and very lovely. by Anonymous reply 50 01/13/2015 Nelli Kim, R50 - who ironically would always remain a bit jealous of Nadia, because Nelli also scored some perfect 10's, but people only remember Nadia's. by Anonymous Nelli Kim now lives in Minnesota and Nadia Comaneci resides in Oklahoma. Who would've thunk? by Anonymous reply 52 01/13/2015 Here's Nadia today. Quite a handsome woman. She and Bart Connor had a kid together, so I'm assuming it was a turkey baster baby. by Anonymous reply 53 01/13/2015 Nadia got those 10s by constantly telling herself, "If I get a medal, perhaps an extra share of cold porridge vill be mine!

If I fall, I vill have to live in a shoebox and eat vire for supper!" Simple psychology. by Anonymous 01/13/2015 "Here's Nadia today. Quite a handsome woman." That's your idea of a "handsome woman?" She looks like an old hooker. My God, that makeup! Trannies don't wear that much makeup. She looks like a trannie hooker who's trying to create the illusion of youth...and failing. by Anonymous Hello nelli kim at R55! by Anonymous reply 56 01/13/2015 Nadia was huge in after the 1976 Olympics. I remember the network showed her routines again and again because people were going crazy for her. At the time, the stuff she was doing was considered daring and difficult. I remember being transfixed by her routines. My dad and I always watched the Summer and Winter Olympics together and we watched Nadia hit her perfect 10s. After the Olympics, there was Nadia's Theme, all kinds of shows on her, etc. Romania made her their ambassador.

And as someone upthread mentions, she really should have repeated as All Around champion in 1980, but the Soviet judging at that boycotted Olympics was out of control to ensure as many Soviet golds as possible. I think I read somewhere that's why Romania was one of the few communist countries to attend the 1984 Olympics because they thought the Soviets had screwed them so badly in 1980. by Anonymous reply 57 01/13/2015 I remember that article in Life magazine. Some people who knew her while she was living in Romania recalled her stuffing herself with chocolate, something ordinary mortals in Romania could rarely get their hands on. She would fatten up like a little piggy and then start rigorous gymnastic training again and lose the weight. I recall seeing a picture of her where she was positively plump. I also remember some sportscaster asking a coach about her extra weight and the coach said she'd work it off during training. Nadia was quite the greedy little glutton.

by Anonymous reply 58 01/13/2015 I took piano lessons for 8 years from the time I was 8-16, in the 70's and early 80's. "Nadia's Theme" or the Young and the Restless is probably one of maybe 4 or five songs I can still play by heart after not touching a piano or keyboard for years at a time. LOL Shawn Johnson and Alicia Sacramone and other gymnasts had the sane problem. by Anonymous reply 61 01/13/2015 [quote]Some people who knew her while she was living in Romania recalled her stuffing herself with chocolate, something ordinary mortals in Romania could rarely get their hands on. Why didn't they have chocolate? Every nation in the world has some form of chocolate. by Anonymous reply 62 01/13/2015 Well, Bela and Marta Karoyli basically starved the Romanian gymnasts to maintain their reed-thin, pixie shape. If you ate nothing but lettuce, celery, water, you'd probably gorge on some chocolate, too.

by Anonymous reply 63 01/13/2015 I also remember the Life magazine article from the 80s after Nadia defected. She wore tons of black eyeliner and red lipstick and looked like a total fucking $5 whore, as the above poster mentioned. by Anonymous Does Nadia know where those lips have been? (pic at link) by Anonymous 01/13/2015 "Why didn't they have chocolate? Every nation in the world has some form of chocolate." You had to PAY for it. That country was so poor that most people were grateful to have bread. Not many people could afford trifles like chocolate. In that country something like that would be considered a luxury. by Anonymous reply 66 01/13/2015 R66 you have to pay for chocolate here, too, or anywhere else. You can't just go to a store and expect to walk out with a candy bar without paying for it. You'd get arrested. by Anonymous She is famous because she know Moose and Squirrel.

by Anonymous reply 70 01/14/2015 R30 - I suspect that there might be some cases where gymnastics has stunted some gymnasts' growth to *some* extent - but the much more common and dominant scenario is as R31 said. It is simple "natural selection" in a highly-demanding acrobatic sport that people who rise to the very top of the sport are (much) shorter/tinier than average. It is physics that taller, heavier bodies have a more difficult time performing the high-level acrobatics. by Anonymous reply 71 01/14/2015 R35 - many "hardcore" gymnastics fans and experts who look at the 1980 Olympic routines with objectivity more or less agree with the actual result. Nadia had at least one major mistake during that competition (a glaring fall on the uneven bars)....and Elena Davidova (the winner) performed strongly. Even Nadia's beam routine during the all-around competition wasn't "perfect" - though Bela Karolyi put on a legendary show of histrionics when the judges allegedly "underscored" that routine.

I suppose Davidova was a worthy Olympic champion - but kind-of a "One-Hit Wonder" gymnast. And she wasn't my favorite Soviet at the competition. I liked Natalia Shaposhnikova (who could have been a serious contender for gold if she didn't have such a jittery performance) and Nelli Kim. I wish Shaposhnikova or Maxi Gnauk (East German gymnast) had won. by Anonymous reply 72 01/14/2015 R62 - I take it that you have no familiarity with how things were in several Communist nations during the good ol' Cold War days. Often - people couldn't just do a "candy run" to Walgreens or somewhere whenever they craved some chocolate. There were shortages, rations, poverty. Being a "privileged" person in society - i.e. a high-ranking Communist official, or an elite athlete - afforded you greater/easier access to many things (like chocolate) - although your nightmare of a coach may take it upon himself to limit your access to "luxury food" (as Bela Karolyi is infamous for). by Anonymous Trolldar r67 for some epic stupidity.

by Anonymous 01/14/2015 R73 thank you. R74 Fuck you! As my grandmother used to say: "There are no stupid questions, just stupid people." by Anonymous reply 75 01/14/2015 "Maybe that's what you have to do to cope with basically being raped and used as a sex slave by the insane Dictator's son who's just as insane as his father." That is total bullshit. Dear Nadia has always tried to portray herself as this poor little girl who was treated so terribly by the awful country of Romania, but in reality she led a privileged life that was much better than the average person's. She was never "raped" or a "sex slave." She was treated very well. by Anonymous R79 why would she lie about that? by Anonymous reply 80 01/14/2015 "Nicu Ceausescu was known to be a psychopath who was notorious for being violent and raping women and you don't think he did the same to Nadia?

What's your source?" No, I don't think Ceausescu raped and ravaged poor little Nadia, the darling of that country. If he had any desire to rape anybody, there were plenty of women at his disposal for that purpose. Why would he make a "sex slave" out of an unprepossessing little girl who was so valuable an asset to the country in his control? People who knew Comeneci during her gymnast glory days dispute the "sex slave" stories. The Life article had quotes from some of them. THEY are "my source." If Comeneci's life in Romania was such a hell (repeated rapes, sex slavedom) then why did she COME BACK to Romania to have her lavish, expensive wedding to the twinky Bart Connor? Seems to me if I was a "sex slave" in a country that abused me horrible I would never want to go back there.

by Anonymous Recently Nadia denounced men and is teaching gymnastics at a school for retarted girls in Beidleheim by Anonymous reply 93 01/15/2015 "Nadia was such a privileged Marie Antoinette of Romania, why did so many thousands of Romanians attend her wedding years later, and still revere her today.?" She was the premiere athlete of that poor country. That's why they worship her. People tend to worship top athletes no matter how badly they behave, and Nadia Comeneci is no exception. by Anonymous 01/15/2015 "why would she lie about that?" To gain sympathy. To portray herself as a poor, helpless abused little girl instead of a selfish, spoiled little brat. That's why. by Anonymous Shut up Olga , you alcoholic old thief! You never score perfect 10! I score 7! by Anonymous reply 107 12/24/2015 I was a kid in the 1980s (born in 1978) and she was THE gymnast. Still talked about. So, I'd say yes.

Maybe not anymore, but for a good ten years if not more, at least in Europe - and I'm extending that to Western Europe, where I grew up. It was only in 2000 when I was watching a documentary on Olga Korbut that I realized *anyone* had ever excelled in gymnastics, other than Nadia Comaneci. by Anonymous reply 108 12/24/2015 To all the Korbut posters: yeah, I gotta say when I watched that documentary... Yea, Olga Korbut. by Anonymous reply 109 12/24/2015 I also remember my mother HATED Nadia Comaneci, or rather, what she represented (Romania, a terrible country then and now, by all accounts). Still there was a fascination as well. If you want to read something creepy, go to Ceaucescu's wikipedia page (or anything with the ruling couple's biography), especially the end. Hell, all of it. Just creepy. No wonder they're a mess and keep wanting to go anywhere else, in Europe. Depressing. by Anonymous What's CCCP wins the prize.

by Anonymous reply 111 12/24/2015 There was a French book recently out, called "The little Communist girl who never smiled" - it was a hit. by Anonymous reply 112 12/24/2015 I was 16 then and I remember her scoring 10 incredible as were all the subsequent 10's. She was one of the major athletes of the decade. But like most Olympic athletes, her fame was fleeting but at least her name is still recognizable and the image of the young Romanian girl instantly comes to mind. by Anonymous reply 113 12/24/2015 Oh the fantasies I use to have about her husband Bart Conner and Kurt Thomas and a pommel horse. by Anonymous Yeah, but did she ever play Peter Pan? by Anonymous reply 115 12/24/2015 I still recall how in 1976, the scoreboards could not list the perfect 10.0 scores because the Olympics had never had them before. Instead, her perfect scores were listed as 1.0.

Romania and Italy are linked culturally as they were populated by Romance language speakers. Romania was on its way to becoming the Italy of Eastern Europe when the Orthodox Church came I and stopped all that cultural evolution there. by Anonymous reply 116 12/24/2015 Kurt Thomas was the one I loved. In fact, he was my first gay crush (l was ten during the Montreal Olympics). And yes, Nadia was well beloved during that time. by Anonymous 2 Gymnasts Flip and Fall for Each Other - The New York Times The New York Times Sports |2 Gymnasts Flip and Fall for Each Other Search Continue reading the main story They first kissed in 1976. She was 14. He was 18. Neither felt a flicker of feeling. To her, he was yet another little blond guy on the circuit. To him, she was a marvelously focused child. The kiss itself was just a photo op. Each had won a silver cup at a Madison Square Garden tuneup for the Montreal Olympics, where she would become a legend, the first perfect princess of gymnastics.

Seven years ago, after the fairy tale had turned grim, he spotted her name in a TV listing and flew to Los Angeles to save her. She was fat and trampy-looking, hostage to a hustler. They spoke again -- Where else? -- in the green room of a TV show. It was a light for me," Nadia Comaneci said. "I was afraid to tell people I was in trouble, but I was always hoping someone would come and take me away." In three weeks, now ages 34 and 38, they will be married in the Parliamentary Palace in Bucharest. The state wedding will be shown live on Romanian television, with highlights the next day on "Wide World of Sports." Continue reading the main story Fifteen hundred guests have been invited. The train on her dress will be 23 feet long. "Sometimes the story seems just a little too cute," Bart Conner said. "Joe Midwest and the mysterious beauty from Transylvania. The script's been written but it's in the bottom of my desk. We've decided not to renew the option." Advertisement Continue reading the main story "I live in the moment," Comaneci said. "I can turn the page and move on.

I did not complain, even when I live on the edge, so why do I have to go through it again?" They are a most beguiling couple. Conner, a gold-medal winner in 1984, quick-witted, down-to-earth, a businessman and broadcaster with, according to Comaneci, "not guilty written on his face," is in town to promote the World Gymnastics Championships in San Juan, P.R., from April 14-20. Comaneci, tautly fit and strikingly glamorous, who represents Danskin among others, is in town, Conner said, to buy more clunky black shoes. They are also pioneers in pairs gymnastics, a sport-art form they may have invented, in which they do lyrical routines to such music as Neil Diamond's "If There Were No Dreams." They tour with the act, which is about as romantic as the horse and beam ever get, and reflects their own made-for-TV life. Nadia touched the sun early and crashed, and rose again. Bart soared late, and glides on still.

The current gymnastics boom began in 1972 with perky Olga Korbut, but the world was surprised by the Soviet Olympic champion; the hype machine was not in place. Four years later, it was ready for tiny Nadia and her perfect 10. She was simultaneously on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated, but she was not impressed; coming from a dictatorship, she assumed someone had called someone else and ordered the covers. And at 14, the Olympics mostly meant a "chance to buy hair clips and sparkling things." Conner didn't make those Games, although he was the all-around college champion. He made the team as the top qualifier in 1980, but America boycotted those Games. That year, in a controversial episode in Moscow, Nadia was seemingly "arranged" out of victory by an alleged collusion of judges. A Russian won. There was little mass coverage of the event, and so America did not see the new Nadia, taller, filled out, a woman. Nadia did not compete in the 1984 Los Angeles Games, and so Nadia and Bart again missed connections.

Conner won two gold medals and a following, which he parlayed into jobs, endorsements, the International Gymnast Magazine, a 1,000-student, 32-instructor gymnastics academy back home in Norman, Okla., and a beach house in Venice, Calif. Nadia defected in 1989. Led by Constantin Panait, a roofer, Comaneci and six others walked and crawled at night through mud, water and ice to Hungary. Panait brought Nadia to Florida, where he had a wife and four children, and began to manage her. He implied they were lovers and would marry. Comaneci says she was afraid of him. Conner watched from afar, concerned for her and for the image of his sport. As a TV commentator, he was able to talk himself onto "The Pat Sajak Show" when she appeared. He sensed her fear of Panait. He offered help. He helped make the connections that eventually led to her escape from that abusive relationship, and a new life in Montreal with a Romanian rugby coach and his family. For a year, they were phone pals. Advertisement "We were good friends before there was physical attraction," Conner said.

"I saw the hard shell drop, a warm, caring woman emerge." "I was curious about him," Comaneci said. "He didn't want anything in exchange for helping me." They began working together, making appearances, and in the summer of 1991, in California, romance bloomed. He proposed in Amsterdam, in 1994. They say they will start a family soon, and probably live in Norman, where their privacy is respected. As open as Conner is, it is her sense of privacy, her need to "shut out" the past, that particularly intrigues him. He loves the mystery of her, he says. "It's O.K. for me not to know everything about her, not to know all the things she had to do to get through her life," Conner said. "I don't know all the prices she paid. I can judge her on the standards of right now, of why I love her as she is."

Question: Nadia Comaneci made her name in which sport?
Answer: GYMNASTICS