Shiftless2
Well-known member
Nadia didn’t just raise the bar; she became the standard.
The scoreboard said "1.00" and the crowd gasped—then they realized the Olympic system had just malfunctioned because it couldn't display perfection.
July 18, 1976. Montreal Forum.
Eighteen thousand spectators packed the arena for women's gymnastics at the Summer Olympics. The Romanian team had brought several competitors, including a tiny fourteen-year-old girl who stood barely five feet tall and weighed eighty-six pounds.
Her name was Nadia Comăneci. Most of the world had never heard of her.
That was about to change forever.
Nadia approached the uneven bars with an expression that would become iconic: no smile, no visible nervousness, just absolute focus. She'd been training for this exact moment since age six, when legendary Romanian coach Béla Károlyi spotted her doing cartwheels in a schoolyard and recruited her to his elite gymnastics program.
For eight years, she'd trained relentlessly—six hours a day, six days a week. She'd sacrificed everything resembling a normal childhood. No birthday parties with friends. No casual playtime. No teenage social life. Just gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics.
Her hands were ...
MORE>
Note - I believe that pic isn't from Montreal but rather from a later meet
The scoreboard said "1.00" and the crowd gasped—then they realized the Olympic system had just malfunctioned because it couldn't display perfection.
July 18, 1976. Montreal Forum.
Eighteen thousand spectators packed the arena for women's gymnastics at the Summer Olympics. The Romanian team had brought several competitors, including a tiny fourteen-year-old girl who stood barely five feet tall and weighed eighty-six pounds.
Her name was Nadia Comăneci. Most of the world had never heard of her.
That was about to change forever.
Nadia approached the uneven bars with an expression that would become iconic: no smile, no visible nervousness, just absolute focus. She'd been training for this exact moment since age six, when legendary Romanian coach Béla Károlyi spotted her doing cartwheels in a schoolyard and recruited her to his elite gymnastics program.
For eight years, she'd trained relentlessly—six hours a day, six days a week. She'd sacrificed everything resembling a normal childhood. No birthday parties with friends. No casual playtime. No teenage social life. Just gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics.
Her hands were ...
MORE>
Note - I believe that pic isn't from Montreal but rather from a later meet
