In her Olympic debut at the tender age of 14, Nadia Comăneci becomes the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 in Olympic history. The young Romanian's performance at the Montreal Olympic Games launches her into the international spotlight.
Comăneci stirred up excitement on the first day of the Montreal games—July 18, 1976—which began with the gymnastics team competition. Her first event, the uneven bars, required every gymnast to compete with the same routine. "I knew I was good at what I was doing, but I didn't know how good I was compared to others," Comăneci recalled. "I added amplitude to every skill." Comăneci executed every element flawlessly. The scoreboards flashed "1.00," because they could only display three digits—no one imaged they would need four. Comăneci was the first gymnast to earn a perfect 10 in Olympic competition.
After her record-breaking score on the uneven bars, Comăneci would notch six more perfect 10s at the Montreal games. Her virtuosic performance also earned her three gold medals, and she became the youngest all-around gold medalist in the history of Olympic gymnastics. An instant media darling, she was featured on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated—all in the same week. Sports illustrated wrote that she was "brilliant and beguiling," with "precision and daring…never seen before." Her coach, the infamous Bela Karolyi, declared that "Nadia has courage."
Comăneci began her gymnastics career as a kindergartner in Romania. Coach Bela Karolyi scouted the 6 year old as a natural talent, and she joined his notoriously severe gymnastics training program. Karolyi, the future coach of the American "Magnificent Seven," coached Comăneci to victory with the Romanian team in Montreal, before defecting to the United States in 1981. Comăneci won World Championship gold medals in 1978 and 1979 and earned two gold medals in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. She retired from competition in 1984.
Romanian authorities subjected Comăneci to intense scrutiny and surveillance after she became a global gymnastics star. She, too, defected from Romania to the U.S. in 1989, where she promotes gymnastics with husband and fellow Olympian Bart Conner.
