NADIA COMANECI: Perfect
Ten in Olympics History
Romania’s Nadia Comaneci was the star of the Montreal Olympics in 1976 when she became the first gymnast in Olympic history to be awarded the perfect score of 10.
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”.
Comaneci first achieved her perfect 10 on the uneven parallel bars in 1976 and the judges awarded her the maximum mark seven times during the Games.
Comaneci first came to prominence at the 1975 European Championships, at which she won four gold medals.
In the 1976 and 1980 Games she won a total of nine Olympic medals. Following the 1980 Games, natural physical development began to inhibit her performance and after a victory at the 1981 World Student Games she retired.
Strangely, Comaneci won only one individual World Championship title- on the balance beam in 1978.
In 1989, she defected from Romania and settled in North America. She has since married American Olympic gymnastic medallist Bart Conner. Together they perform in gymnastics exhibitions and give clinics.
Besides winning the nine medals in Olympics (five gold, three sliver, one bronze), Nadia Comaneci also won four medals (two gold and two silver) in World Championship between 1978 and 1979
Nadia Comaneci’s performance in Olympic Games:
Olympics G S B
Montreal 1976 3 1 1
Moscow 1980 2 2 –
Total 5 3 1