Nadia COMANECI: A legend turns 50!

The following was told by her mother Stefania:
Nadia has always been a wild child. She was climbing on trees, riding her trike with a lot of speed and played football with the boys. For gymnastics she was discovered on February 25th 1968 in the gym in Onesti. Her first coaches were Bela and Marta Karoly. With them she stayed until the top of her career. On September 15th 1969 Nadia COMANECI reached the second place in her first gymnastics competition. One year later she became the local champion in the area. On December 5th 1971 she became Romanian national champion in her age-group. Finally on May 3rd 1975 she became a fan's favourite in the international World of gymnastics when she became European Champion in Skien/Norway. The highlight of her career took place on July 21st 1976. In Montreal she became Olympic Champion in the all-around. Five teams she got the dream score of 10.00.

Today the mother of a son and wife of the Olympic Champion in gymnastics Bart Connor in den USA belongs to the 100 most known women World-wide - and in her former home country Romania she has been a star for a long time already!
(hjz)

She was only 14 years old when she won three gold medals at the Olympic Games in 1976 (uneven bars, beam, all-around).
Two more followed at the Games 1980 in Moscow (beam,floor). In addition to that the gymnast who was born in Romania became a two-time World Champion and won 9 European Championship-titles.

In 1981 Nadia Comaneci ended her career. She studied physical education at university and became a coach for younger gymnasts.
In 1989 she escaped from Romania to the USA where she married the Olympic Champion in gymnastics Bart Conner.
(>> More information - in German only - can be seen also in the interview of the newspaper "WELT-Online")

Her birthday on November 12th is being shared with the one from another international gymnastics legend:

* Leon S T U K E L J (SLO):
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