Nadia Comaneci: Gymnastics

 International Star of the Women's International Sports Hall of Fame

Website: http://bartandnadia.com/

Unofficial Website

Sports Illustrated Flashback

From the covers of Newsweek, TIME, and Sports Illustrated at age 14 to walking six hours in the dead of night for her freedom, the life story of Nadia Comaneci is part fairly tale and part horror story. But now three decades after dazzling the world in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, she is a commanding presence in the world of sport wherever she goes.

I was a member of the delegation for the New York City Bid Committee for the 2012 Games. The final decision was being made by the International Olympic Committee in Singapore in 2006. We were there for three days. Among the New York City delegation was Senator Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Muhammad Ali, Nadia Comaneci, and her husband, Bart Conner. Everywhere we went, people gravitated to Ali and Nadia first. It was a revelation to see her magnetism after all these years and the tumultuous events in her life.

The world at large discovered her in Montreal when the 14-year-old Romanian gymnast captured the hearts of the world with her stunning perfection. She stood 4 feet, 11 inches and weighed 86 pounds. Never before had someone scored a perfect 10 in an event. In Montreal she achieved seven perfect 10s, three gold medals, one bronze, and one silver. The world fell in love with this child and she returned home to Romania as a national treasure. But like other national treasures in the Eastern Bloc nations, she was constantly watched to assure that she would not defect.

She had one more Olympics in her and at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Comaneci won two gold and two silver medals. That gave her an Olympic total of nine medals, including five gold, three silver, and one bronze.

Her competitive career ended with what many thought was a reflection of the political times. Relations between the Soviet Union and its previously loyal Romania had chilled by 1980. In judging the all-around gymnastics winner, the judges took an unheard of 28 minutes to choose. When the Soviet judge gave Nadia a lower score than the other judges, she slipped to the silver medal while Soviet gymnast Yelena Davydova won the gold.

Fast forwarding, Nadia defected from Romania in 1989, was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1996, and married American Olympic gymnastics champion, Bart Conner, in 1996. They are partners in several business ventures, including the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy, International Gymnast Magazine, and Perfect 10 Productions, Inc. (a television production company). Comaneci also does personal appearances, commercial endorsements, speaking engagements, and charity events. She authored a book called Letters to a Young Gymnast in 1993 about her life’s journey.

But that journey has so many details worth noting here. It shows how fate can enter in the most unlikely ways.

Gheorge and Stefania-Alexandria Comaneci watched their daughter’s birth on November 12, 1961, in Onesti, Romania. Coincidentally, the gymnastics coach of an Onesti sports school was Bela Karolyi, who would become one of the most renowned gymnastics coaches ever.

One day Karolyi visited Nadia’s school when she was only six years old. He invited her and a friend to come to his gym and be tested after he observed the two pretending to be gymnasts. Nadia passed the test easily and her parents agreed to let her train at Karolyi’s gym.

From the start, Nadia trained tirelessly six days a week, four hours a day. She started competing a year later. At age seven and the youngest in the competition, she finished 13th in the Romanian National Junior Gymnastics Championships. Coach Karolyi gave her a doll and reportedly told her “never to finish 13th again.” A year later, doll in hand, she won first place as an eight-year-old. She won two more National Junior titles and started competing outside Romania in a “Friendship Cup” meet with Bulgaria. She returned with medals and Bulgarian dolls.

In 1975, Comaneci won four gold medals and one silver at the European Championships, including the gold medal for the allaround competition, making her the youngest girl to have ever won it. She was clearly ready for the Olympics. The uneven parallel bars was the first event and her performance stunned the crowd. The scoreboard lit up with a 1.00, confusing everyone that she got such a low score. Then it settled in that the scoreboard was not able to post the first perfect 10 ever achieved.

By 1976, she had five Olympic medals and more than 200 dolls, reinforcing her image of innocence and youth.

As another milestone, she was awarded the Hero of Socialist

Labor, the highest honor in Romania. Comaneci was the youngest girl to receive it.

After the 1980 Moscow Games, Coach Karolyi defected from Romania, provoking Nadia to contemplate the same. The Romanian government kept a close eye on their superstar and did not allow her to leave the country.

In 1989, she defected from Romania in the dead of night, leaving behind her medals and her little brother, Adrian. She walked for six hours to the Hungarian border in bad weather, always looking back with the fear of being caught. There, Constantin Panait met her and took her to the United States. The story, says Nadia, should have ended there. Panait was a 36-year-old Romanian émigré who had arranged the escape. Nadia, the innocent child, suddenly was seen by the side of this married man. She wore heavy makeup and started to shatter the image of her innocent and brilliant youth as the two traveled and stayed together for months.

Coach Karolyi sensed something was wrong and he asked his friend, Alexandru Stefu, a Romanian rugby coach living in Montreal, to help. Stefu discussed a lucrative endorsement contract to get Panait to take Nadia to Montreal. Comaneci asked for help, telling him that Panait was “a bad guy.” When Panait returned, he saw Stefu and Comaneci together and left but not before he had all the money he had negotiated for Nadia—close to $150,000. But Nadia was now free and ready to start again. Because she had been so beloved, it was not hard for the world to resume its love affair with the extraordinary woman.

Comaneci was named by ABC News and Ladies Home Journal as one of the 100 Most Important Women of the 20th century. In 2000, Comaneci was named as one of the athletes of the century by the Laureus World Sports Academy.

Comaneci travels widely pursuing her interests, which include extensive humanitarian work. She is the vice chairperson of the board of directors of Special Olympics International and vice president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. She returns often to Romania, where she helps numerous charitable organizations and even donated $120,000 to the Romanian gymnastics team.

Dylan Paul Conner was born on June 3, 2006, to Conner and Comaneci. They live in Norman, Oklahoma, where their gymnastics school is located. But they are truly citizens of the world and I was honored to observe that in conjunction with our travels together in support of New York City’s attempt to host the 2012 Olympics.

The previous excerpt was written by Dr. Richard Lapchick