Background and career
Nadia Elena Comăneci Conner (née Comăneci; born November 12, 1961) is a Romanian retired gymnast. She is a five-time Olympic gold medalist, all in individual events. In 1976, at age 14, Comăneci was the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games. At the same Games (1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal), she earned six more perfect 10s for events en route to winning three gold medals. At the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, Comăneci won two more gold medals and achieved two more perfect 10s. During her career, Comăneci won nine Olympic medals and four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship medals.
One of the world's best-known gymnasts, Comăneci was praised for her artistry and grace, which brought unprecedented global popularity to the sport in the mid-1970s. Called "the most iconic gymnast of the 20th century" by El País, Comăneci was named one of the Athletes of the 20th century by the Laureus World Sports Academy. In 2024, the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) voted her as the best female gymnast of the past 100 years and the second best female athlete of all sports.
Comăneci has lived in the United States since 1989, when she defected from then-Communist Romania, before its revolution in December that year. Comăneci later worked with and married American Olympic gold-medal gymnast Bart Conner, their wedding held in Bucharest after the fall of the Communist regime and televised live in Romania.
Nadia Elena Comăneci was born on November 12, 1961, in Onești, a small town in the Carpathian Mountains, in Bacău County, Romania, in the historical region of Western Moldavia. She was born to Gheorghe (1936–2012) and Ștefania Comăneci, and has a younger brother named Adrian. Her parents separated in the 1970s and her father later moved to Bucharest, the capital. Nadia and Adrian were raised in the Romanian Orthodox Church. In a 2011 interview, her mother said that she enrolled Comăneci into gymnastics classes because she was so full of energy and active as a child that she was difficult to manage. After years of top-level athletic competition, Comăneci graduated from Politehnica University of Bucharest with a degree in sports education, which qualified her to coach gymnastics.
Nadia began gymnastics in kindergarten with a local team called Flacără ("The Flame"), with coaches Duncan and Munteanu. At age six, she was chosen to attend Béla Károlyi's experimental gymnastics school, after Károlyi spotted her and a friend turning cartwheels in a schoolyard. Károlyi was looking for gymnasts that he could train from a young age. When recess ended, the girls quickly went inside and Károlyi went around the classrooms trying to find them; he eventually spotted Comăneci. The other girl, Viorica Dumitru, developed in a different direction and became one of Romania's top ballerinas.
