How tall was nadia comaneci in 1976

The Romanian team also placed second in the team competition, capturing silver. She also holds the record for being the youngest Olympic gymnastics all-around champion ever. With the revised age-eligibility requirements in the sport gymnasts must now turn sixteen in the calendar year to compete in the Olympics; in gymnasts had to be fourteen by the first day of the competition , it is currently not possible to legally break this record.

The team followed orders and controversially walked out of the competition during the event finals. 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. A fall from the uneven bars resulted in a fourth-place finish in the all-around behind Soviets Elena Mukhina, Nellie Kim, and Natalia Shaposhnikova. Against doctors' orders, she left the hospital and competed on the beam, where she scored a 9.

Her performance helped give the Romanians their first team gold medal. She successfully defended her Olympic title on the balance beam and tied with Nellie Kim for the gold medal in the floor exercise. There were controversies over the scoring in both the all-around and floor exercise competitions. The Romanian team finished second overall in the team competition. Her official retirement ceremony took place in Bucharest in and was attended by the Chairman of the International Olympic Committee.

She was granted leave to attend the Olympics in Los Angeles but was supervised for the entire trip. In November , 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 flashy clothes, and the fact that her constant companion Constantin Panait a Romanian exile who arranged her escape from Romania and initially exercised considerable control over her as her self-appointed business manager was a married father of four. She successfully distanced herself from the image problems of her initial arrival from Romania.

She also dabbled in modeling, appearing in advertisements for wedding dresses and Jockey underwear. While she was living in Montreal, former American gymnast Bart Conner, whom she had met for the first time in at the American Cup, contacted her and invited her to live in Oklahoma. They became engaged in The ceremony was broadcast live in Romania, and the reception was held in the former presidential palace. Her routine on the uneven bars that day was flawless, and the judges agreed.

One of them approached Baumat, who was working in the arena. I said that they could either put up 1. Just as the federation had told me. It is easy to see why the IOC considered By the time she left Montreal the tiny Romanian had done it seven times. In the performances of the young Russian Olga Korbut had thrust gymnastics out of the Olympic shadows; in Comaneci stepped into that spotlight and created a legend.

Korbut must take some of the credit not just for the attention Comaneci received, but for the quality of her performances. Korbut and her Belorussian coach, Renald Knysh, had struck up a fearsome rivalry not just with Comaneci and her coach, Bela Karolyi, but also with the Russian Ludmila Tourischeva and her coach, Vladislav Rastorotsky.

Four times she produced perfect routines in the asymmetic or uneven bars, and three times on the beam. She won three gold medals, for the bars, the beam and the all-around competition, as well as a team silver and a bronze for her floor exercise. There were many possible reasons for that. Comaneci had been born in in Onesti, a town in the Carpathian mountains, to a car mechanic called Gheorghe and his factory-worker wife, Stefania-Alexandrina.

Her talent was spotted at the age of six, when she joined the boarding school for young gymnasts run by Karolyi and his wife, Marta.

Karolyi was a former junior boxing champion, and a member of the national hammer-throwing team. But some of the methods apparently used by the Karolyis have caused controversy. And we, you know, just got smacked everywhere from Bela — on all our body parts. He has huge hands and it hurts. You can say it was a concentration camp, or even a prison.

She received seven perfect scores and won three gold medals—for the uneven bars, balance beam and individual all-around—and a bronze medal for her floor exercise.

As part of the second-place Romanian national team, she won silver. Comaneci's performance at the Olympics redefined both her sport and audiences' expectations of female athletes. At the Olympic Games in Moscow, Russia, Comaneci won two gold, for the balance beam and floor exercise in which she tied with Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim ; and two silver medals, for the team competition and individual all-around.

He later led the nation's gymnastic program to its first World Championships. You know what I mean? It becomes much more important, and I appreciate it because I understand from a different view what it takes to do that.

Comaneci retired from competition in and worked as a coach for the Romanian team before defecting to the United States via Hungary in After appearing in a series of provocative underwear advertisements, she married American gymnast Bart Conner in and moved to Norman, Oklahoma.

Comaneci currently does television commentary, writes for gymnastic publications and travels the world promoting the sport. We strive for accuracy and fairness.