Nadia Comăneci

Nadia Elena Comăneci was born on November 12, 1961, in Onești, a city in the Bacău County of Romania. At the age of six, she was discovered by gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi, who invited her to train at his newly opened gymnastics school. By age eight she was enrolled in a state sports school and competing seriously.

Comăneci became nationally prominent in Romanian gymnastics during the early 1970s and won multiple Romanian national championships. At the 1975 European Championships, she won four gold medals, signaling her arrival as a dominant force in international gymnastics.

At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Comăneci achieved something unprecedented: the scoreboards were not equipped to display a score of 10.0, so the display read 1.00. She received seven perfect scores of 10.0 during those Games and won three gold medals (all-around, uneven bars, balance beam), one silver, and one bronze. She was 14 years old at the time. The performance was broadcast globally and became one of the defining moments in Olympic history.

Comăneci returned to compete at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where she won two gold medals (floor exercise and balance beam) and two silver medals. She retired from competitive gymnastics in 1984 after serving as a national team coach in Romania.

In 1989, shortly before the fall of the Ceaușescu regime, Comăneci defected from Romania and eventually settled in the United States. She married American gymnast Bart Conner in 1996, and the couple have been involved in gymnastics promotion and coaching. She has received numerous honors, including induction into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.