Letters to a Young Gymnast (6 page)

We were a curiosity, if nothing else. We were really tiny compared to the other gymnasts (most were in their late teens and twenties) and wore matching leotards. Gymnasts from other countries wore mismatched clothing and moved casually from apparatus to apparatus. Not us. Without ever sitting down, we ran through our routines, and we were flawless. By the time I dismounted the beam, the coaches, other gymnasts, and official delegates were in an uproar. The next day, the previously unknown team from Romania had to hide from reporters.

Friend, you wrote that I was an “automaton in '76, a tiny robot doing what everyone else wished.” You are wrong. It is true that children do not choose their own paths at age six. What do they know? Parents clothe and feed them and decide when it is time for naps and bed. Parents pick their music, exercise, and outings. I was placed in a gym to play—that's all it was in my mind—and if I hadn't wanted to, I could have gone home. You cannot force a child to do anything as complex as gymnastics and to improve at the task unless that child wants to. I was given the chance to run, climb, jump, and soar, and I loved it from the moment I entered the gym. By age fourteen, when I reached the 1976 Games, I had already chosen my path; I was doing exactly as I wished.

The Karolyis and my government gave me an opportunity that my family never could have afforded. In other countries, you have to pay for your coach; for your private-school tuition; and for all of the leotards, wrist guards, shoes, and medical attention necessary for success. Things were different in Romania. My parents and my brother never suffered as a result of my desires. They could enjoy my successes while pursuing their own lives. In Romania, it was a big deal, a huge honor, to make it onto an elite athletic team. You were allowed to travel, and none of us could have afforded that. As a thirteen-or fourteen-year-old, you got to see other countries and buy stupid things that seemed really important at the time, such as dolls and ribbons and socks. Although I didn't understand the importance of the Olympics in 1976, I was a willing participant. I had the choice to participate, and I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and held on as tightly as humanly possible.

When the Romanian team entered the arena in Montreal for the Olympic compulsory competition, with our hair in ponytails and wearing snow-white leotards with striped piping, we were no longer the unknown team from a tiny country who-knows-where. There was a buzz, created by an unparalleled public relations move by Bela. Though many of the judges came from the USSR and favored the Soviets, our team dominated the compulsories; when I stepped up to the bars, we were in second place, only one-hundredth of a point behind the Russians.

No one knows when he or she is about to make history. There is no warning and no instruction manual on how to handle the moment. I can only tell you that it was business as usual as I swung onto the uneven bars. I executed each skill with the extension and movements expected of me, and I dismounted. I'd done the same compulsory routine as everyone else, but with a “Nadia touch.” I felt an almost invisible hop on the landing but knew that my routine was good enough. It wasn't perfect, though.

Since I was the last to perform on the bars, I immediately went over to warm up for the beam. I never analyzed my performance beyond a quick thought of the landing. It was done, and I needed to move on. I knew that after the day was over, the Karolyis and I would talk about what I had done right and wrong. That's how we always processed competitions. While I warmed up for the beam, my score for the bars flashed across the scoreboard—a 1.00. I continued to warm up, unaware of what was happening, focused on my next routine. The crowd was silent, confused. No one knew what 1.00 meant.

Bela gestured to the judges to ask what my score meant, ready for a fight. A Swedish judge held up ten
fingers. The reason my score had shown as 1.00 was that the scoreboard didn't have the programmed ability to flash a 10 because the organizers had never had the need for one before. Bela came over to me, and I asked, “Mr. Professor, was that really a 10?” He grinned from ear to ear and said yes. I've told you, friend, it is rare for me to show emotion on the outside, but I did smile then, and when one of my teammates told me to go up and wave to the crowd, I did that, too.

Promptly, I forgot about the 10 and moved on to the beam. During the rest of the competition, I got six more perfect scores of 10, for a total of seven at the Montreal Games. It didn't have an impact on me—not one bit. I thought that maybe the judges were being too good to me. The team was happy about my scores, but none of us focused on them. We needed to pay attention to the rest of the competition. I have always been able to concentrate. When I'm on the beam, I don't hear the music from the floor. And when I'm vaulting, I can't hear the applause when other gymnasts do their dismounts.

I do remember thinking at the time that I was glad to get a perfect 10 on the bars first because when I began gymnastics, bars were my original favorite. I loved the precision, the angles, and the complexity. Bars require a lot of thinking and figuring things out by using specific lines and points for reference. The Comaneci Salto and Comaneci Dismount that I performed during the 1976 Games came from countless hours of practice and thousands of falls. The idea that Bela and I had created new skills never seen before was exciting. But other than those random thoughts, receiving the first 10 for my uneven bar routine did not affect me. My fellow gymnasts were still my friends—my sisters. There was little
personal jealousy because everything we did was designed to help the team, which benefited everyone. Bela was responsible for the strategy, and we were responsible for the consistency of our performances.

In the end, I won the all-around gold medal as well as an individual gold on bars and beam and a bronze on floor . . . and made history. Does this sound anticlimactic? Well, in a way, that's how it felt. There were a few moments of disbelief coupled with winning medals, which felt great, but as I've said, doing well was expected of me. It was my job. I accomplished my goals, everyone's goals, but winning a competition wasn't an enormous surprise. Very simply, that is what I was supposed to do. My moments of success felt incredible, but they were topped off by exhaustion and the desire to return home to my family and life.

There were no appearances on David Letterman or Oprah Winfrey. I didn't do a photo shoot for the cover of a magazine. Sports agents at IMG and CAA never beat down my door; they didn't even knock. I came, performed, made my country proud, and left the arena via a bus, not a limousine. I felt a sense of accomplishment, but there was practice, training, and more competitions ahead. The Olympics were over, and I was naive enough to believe I would never look back.

Nothing, my friend, is ever what it seems.

■
The Disciplined Life

During the 1976 Olympics, I did not realize how much media attention was focused on the Romanian team or me. We didn't watch television or speak to other athletes, so there was no way to know. Plus, the media were not allowed into the Olympic Village, so we had no contact with reporters and journalists. But Bela and
Marta knew, and they asked the Romanian government to allow us to go home immediately after the Games. They found the attention overwhelming and frightening and wanted to make certain the team was safe. There was no immediate flight, so we were taken to a youth camp in Canada, which was a treat. I was still under the impression that I'd done very well at the Olympics but not that I had become a national figure or a heroine back in my country.

Friend, I understand the curiosity in your last letter about our return to Bucharest. You've watched countless athletes return victorious to your own country, and there is an expectation for ticker-tape parades, speeches, and screaming fans. Until 1976, that had never happened in our country, so how was I to know or be prepared for what lay ahead? When our plane landed in Bucharest, I still had no clue. I stepped out the door and down the stairs, and the thousands of Romanians who had come to meet our plane overwhelmed me. We'd gone to countless important competitions before, but never had we been met by cheering fans or had Nicolae Ceausescu order a celebration for our arrival. I recall that I had been carrying a doll in my hands and that I was crying because I had lost it after somebody pulled on her leg. It was scary—all those years when nobody cared and now, suddenly, everyone was pushing, pulling, and trying to touch me.

We were taken to an awards ceremony, and Ceausescu personally gave out Romanian government awards to the Karolyis and the gymnasts. I had never met Ceausescu before, and it was like meeting the president of the United States. It was an honor for a kid, a big deal. Politics back then was a different world, and I had nothing to do with it.

So, you want to know what changed. Nothing . . . at first. I went back to Onesti and back to the experimental school, classes, and practices. My father still didn't have a car; my mother was still a homemaker. I received a monetary award from my government for my medals but nothing too big; after all, I lived in a Communist country. I was also still receiving a monthly stipend from the government for being an elite gymnast, but my mother was in charge of all that money. I'm lucky that she saved it because in the end, I desperately needed what she put away for me.

Please don't assume, like everyone else does, that when I won the 1976 all-around gold medal I became a wealthy girl. Perhaps you've heard rumors, but our country was closed to foreign journalists, and the only information that got out to the world was what my government chose to share. Sometimes it was the truth, but more often than not it was self-serving. I still lived in a simple dormitory a few minutes from home. I returned every weekend to my family's house, but in truth, I was bored there because at the dorms, I had twenty other girls to play with. And at home, my mother still made me do the dishes.

There was no time to rest on my laurels. No one is selected off the streets for the Olympics. You work your way up to it. Despite what my mother and I originally may have thought, gymnastics was not exactly a hobby for me. Not if I wanted to succeed, avoid injuries, and be the best in the world. Plus, Bela was not the kind of guy who would tell me that I was perfect. He always said I could do better, and I lived under that. He never put too much emphasis on those times when I did something great. It was always about the next time.

So when I returned to school, I still woke up every morning and had breakfast at 7:00 A.M. and then went to the first training session from 8:00 until 11:00. I went to classes from 11:00 until 2:00 P.M., rested for a few hours, and then headed back to the gym for late practice until 7:30. We ate dinner after our second practice, did homework, and then had lights out by 10:00 P.M.

Our meals were all very regimented—mostly grilled meat, fish, and salads and fruit. We didn't eat any pastas or bread because the team doctor didn't believe they were important components of a well-balanced meal. The doctor designed a menu based on what each week demanded nutritionally, such as protein, vegetables, fruit, and milk. Meals were not about enjoyment but about nutrients. You ate what was on your plate, whether you liked it or not. There were a few exceptions. I liked fried cheese, and the team doctor let me have it once a week. We all loved chocolate and were given a piece each day before training because the doctor believed it gave us energy. To this day, I love chocolate—probably because I was only allowed to have a little of it as a child.

You asked in your last letter if the rumors about Bela Karolyi's cruelty as a coach were true. I want to try to put that question into perspective by asking
you
a few questions. How much can you really understand of a man who struggled to survive under Ceausescu's regime? Who defected with his wife but was forced to leave his daughter behind, with the knowledge that it might take years to get her out of Romania? Can you comprehend what it takes to help a young girl recognize her potential and then live up to her dreams . . . dreams that are enormous and beyond the reach of almost anyone in the world? How much can
I
really understand Bela, for that
matter? I can only tell you what I perceived then and what I believe today. You will have to make your own judgment on this subject.