Nadia Comăneci

Nadia Comăneci
(r-l) Comăneci with Condoleezza Rice
Personal information
Full name	Nadia Elena Comaneci
Country represented	Romania
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior international
Gym	National Training Center
Former coach(es)	Béla Károlyi; Marta Károlyi
Choreographer	Geza Pozar
Eponymous skills	Comaneci salto (uneven bars)
Retired	1981
Medal record Olympic Games 1976 Montréal All-around 1976 Montréal Uneven bars 1976 Montréal Balance beam 1980 Moscow Balance beam 1980 Moscow Floor exercise 1976 Montréal Team competition 1980 Moscow Team competition 1980 Moscow All-around 1976 Montréal Floor exercise World Championships 1978 Strasbourg Balance Beam 1979 Ft. Worth Team 1978 Strasbourg Team 1978 Strasbourg Vault European Championships 1975 Skien All around 1975 Skien Uneven Bars 1975 Skien Balance Beam 1975 Skien Vault 1977 Prague All around 1977 Prague Uneven Bars 1979 Copenhagen All around 1979 Copenhagen Vault 1979 Copenhagen Floor Exercise 1975 Skien Floor Exercise 1977 Prague Vault 1979 Copenhagen Balance Beam

Nadia Elena Comaneci (originally Comăneci /ko.mə'neʧʲ/; born November 12, 1961) is a Romanian gymnast, winner of five Olympic gold medals, and the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She is one of the best-known gymnasts in the world and, along with Olga Korbut, is credited with popularizing the sport around the world.

Early life

Comaneci was born in Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (Oneşti), Romania, as the daughter of Gheorghe and Ştefania-Alexandrina. Her pregnant mother was watching a Russian film in which the heroine of the story's name was Nadya, the shortened version of the Russian name Nadyezhda (which means, literally, "Hope"). She decided that her daughter would be named Nadia, too. Comaneci also has a younger brother named Adrian.

Early gymnastics career

Comaneci began gymnastics in kindergarten with a local team called "Flame," with coaches Duncan and Munteanu. At age 6 she was chosen to attend Béla Károlyi's experimental gymnastics school after he spotted her and a friend turning cartwheels in a schoolyard.

Comaneci was training with the Károlyis by the time she was 7 years old, in 1969. She was one of the first students at the gymnastics school established in Onesti by Béla and his wife, Marta, who would later defect to the United States and become coaches of many prominent 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 placed 13th in her first Romanian National Championships in 1969. A year later, in 1970, she began competing as a member of her hometown team and became the youngest gymnast ever to win the Romanian Nationals. 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. At the age of 11, in 1973, she won the all-around gold, as well as the vault and uneven bars titles, at the Junior Friendship Tournament (Druzhba), an important meet for junior gymnasts.

Comaneci's first major international success came at the age of 13, when she nearly swept the 1975 European Championships in Skien, Norway, winning the all-around and gold medals on every event but the floor exercise, in which 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. In the Pre-Olympic test event in Montreal, Comaneci won the all-around and the balance beam golds, as well as silvers in the vault, floor, and bars behind accomplished Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim, who would prove to be one of her greatest rivals over the next five years.

In March 1976, Comaneci competed in the inaugural edition of the American Cup at Madison Square Garden in New York. She received unprecedented scores of 10.0, which signified a perfect routine without any deductions, on vault in both the preliminary and final rounds of competition and won the all-around. Comaneci also received 10s in other meets in 1976, including the prestigious Chunichi Cup competition in Japan, where she posted perfect marks on the vault and uneven bars.

The international community took note of Comaneci: she was named the United Press International's "Female Athlete of the Year" for 1975.

Montreal Olympics

At the age of 14, Comaneci became one of the stars of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. During the team portion of the competition, her routine on the uneven bars was scored at a 10.0. It was the first time in modern Olympic gymnastics history that the score had ever been awarded. The scoreboards were not even equipped to display scores of 10.0—so Nadia's perfect marks were reported on the boards as 1.00 instead. Over the course of the Olympics, Comaneci would earn six additional 10s, en route to capturing the all-around, beam and bars titles and a bronze medal on the floor exercise. The Romanian team also placed second in the team competition.

Comaneci was the first Romanian gymnast to win the all-around title at the Olympics. She also holds the record as the youngest Olympic gymnastics all-around champion ever; with the revised age-eligibility requirements in the sport (gymnasts must now turn 16 in the calendar year to compete in the Olympics; in 1976 gymnasts had to be 14 by the first day of the competition), this record is currently unable to be broken.

Comaneci's achievements at the Olympics generated a significant amount of media attention. The theme song from the American soap opera The Young and the Restless became associated with her after the television program ABC's Wide World Of Sports used it as background music for montages of her routines. The song became a top ten single in the fall of 1976, and the composer, Barry De Vorzon, renamed it to "Nadia's Theme" after her. However, Comaneci never actually performed to "Nadia's Theme." Her floor exercise music was a medley of the songs "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" and "Jump in the Line" arranged for piano.

She was the 1976 BBC Sports Personality of the Year in the overseas athletes category and the Associated Press's 1976 "Female Athlete of the Year". She also retained her title as the UPI Female Athlete of the Year. Back home in Romania, Comaneci's success led her to be named a "Hero of Socialist Labor," she was the youngest Romanian to receive such recognition during the administration of Nicolae Ceauşescu.

1977–1980

Comaneci successfully defended her European all-around title in 1977, but when questions about the scoring were raised, Ceauşescu ordered the Romanian gymnasts to return home. The team followed orders and controversially walked out of the competition during the event finals.

Following the 1977 Europeans, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation removed Comaneci from her longtime coaches, the Károlyis, and sent her to Bucharest to train at the 23 August sports complex. The change was not positive for Comaneci. Grappling with both the stress of her parents' divorce and the new training environment, she was extremely unhappy and her gymnastics and overall fitness suffered. An overweight and out of shape Comaneci showed up at the 1978 World Championships. A fall from the uneven bars resulted in a 4th place finish in the all-around behind Elena Mukhina, Nellie Kim, and Natalia Shaposhnikova, but Comaneci won the beam title.

After the 1978 Worlds, Comaneci was permitted to return to Deva and to the Károlyis. In 1979, a newly slim and motivated Comaneci won her third consecutive European all-around title, becoming the first gymnast, male or female, to achieve the feat. 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 caused by a cut in her wrist from her metal grip buckle. Against doctors' orders, she left the hospital and competed on the beam, where she 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 and underwent a minor surgical procedure for the infected hand, which had developed an abscess.

Comaneci participated in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, where she placed second, by a small margin, to Yelena Davydova . She defended her Olympic title in the balance beam and tied with Nellie Kim for the gold medal in the floor exercise. The Romanian team finished second overall.

Comaneci retired from competition in 1981. Her official retirement ceremony took place in Bucharest in 1984 and was attended by the International Olympic Committee Chairman.

Post retirement

In 1981, Comaneci participated in a gymnastics exhibition tour in the United States. During 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 was supervised for the entire trip. Aside from that journey, and a few select trips to Moscow and Cuba, 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. Her initial arrival in the United States generated some negative press, focusing on her penchant for heavy makeup and trashy clothes, the fact that Constantin Panait (a Romanian exile who helped her escape from Romania and was her constant companion) was a married father of 4, and hinted at an eating disorder and an unsavory life left behind in Romania.

Comaneci initially settled in Montreal. With the help of friends, she successfully distanced herself from Panait and the image problems of her initial arrival from Romania. 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.

While she was living in Montreal, Bart Conner, whom she had met for the first time in 1976 at the American Cup, contacted her and invited her to live in Oklahoma. They became engaged in 1994. Together with Conner, she returned to Romania for the first time since her defection (and since the fall of Communism and of Ceausescu), and the couple were married in Bucharest on April 271996. The ceremony was broadcast live in Romania, and the reception was held in the former presidential palace.

On June 29, 2001, Comaneci became a naturalized citizen of the United States. She has also retained her Romanian passport, making her a dual citizen.

In December 2003, Comaneci's autobiography, Letters To A Young Gymnast, was published. The memoir answers questions that she has received in letters from fans. She has also been the subject of several unofficial biographies, television documentaries and a made-for-television film, Nadia, that was broadcast in the United States shortly before the 1984 Olympics.

Comaneci and Conner welcomed their first child, a baby boy named Dylan Paul Conner, on June 3, 2006 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Recent activities

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. She has also personally funded the construction and operation of the Nadia Comaneci Children's Clinic, a clinic in Bucharest that provides low-cost and free medical and social support to Romanian children.

In 2003, the Romanian government appointed her as an Honorary Consul General of Romania to the United States to deal with bilateral relations between the two nations. She performs this function based out of her Norman, Oklahoma, office.

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. In 2000, her 10.0 Montreal uneven bars routine was featured in a commercial for Adidas which ran during the Sydney Olympics.

On August 10, 2007, Nadia was a "mob" participant on the American version of the game show 1 vs 100, and was not eliminated until the last 20 members of the mob were left. In January 2008, she was one of the contestants in the celebrity edition of Donald Trump's television program The Apprentice.

Awards

Comaneci received the Olympic Order, the highest award given by the International Olympic Committee, in 1984 and 2004. She is the only person to receive this honor twice, and was also the youngest recipient. She has also been inducted into the International Gymnastics Hal of Fame.

Special skills

Comaneci was known for her clean technique, innovative and difficult original skills, and her stoic, cool demeanor in competition.

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, was rated as an 'E' element.

On balance beam, Comaneci was the first gymnast to successfully perform an aerial walkover and an aerial cartwheel-two back handsprings flight series. She is also credited as being the first gymnast to perform a double-twist dismount.

Comaneci's skills on the floor exercise included a double back salto and a double twist.

Pop culture references

• When Joanne Charis states that the girls need to stay and practice their routines in the movie Stick It, Meena states: "Who died and made you Nadia?"

• In the ABC hit television show, Lost season 3 episode 11, the character Mikhail Bakunin (named after the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin) has a cat named Nadia, named after Nadia Comaneci, whom he calls "the greatest athlete the world has ever known." He also reveals that they share a birthday. In addition, the station Mikhail works in is called the "Flame", which is also the name of Comaneci's first gymnastics team.

• Gilda Radner played Comaneci on several episodes of Saturday Night Live, as well as in an extended skit in her 1979 stage show Gilda Live.

• Nadia Turner, singer and actress, and American Idol Season 4 Finalist was named after Nadia Comaneci.

• Swimmer Anita Nall, who won three Olympic medals including a relay gold, was named Nadia as her father was watching television awaiting her birth.

External links

• Official Site of Bart Conner and Nadia Comaneci
• Profile of Nadia Comaneci
• List of competitive results at Gymn Forum