AUSTRALIA/FILE: FORMER OLYMPIC GYMNASTICS NADIA COMANECI LOOKS FORWARD TO THE FUTURE AFTER A TUMULTUOUS LIFE WINING PERFECT TENS AT THE 1976 OLYMPICS AT THE AGE OF 14

Record ID: 551736

  • Title: AUSTRALIA/FILE: FORMER OLYMPIC GYMNASTICS NADIA COMANECI LOOKS FORWARD TO THE FUTURE AFTER A TUMULTUOUS LIFE WINING PERFECT TENS AT THE 1976 OLYMPICS AT THE AGE OF 14
  • Date: 23rd September 2000
  • Summary: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA (SEPTEMBER 23, 2000) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE (English) COMANECI SAYING "A lot of people, we know that not only in gymnastics but in a lot of sports to get to this level it's a lot of work, we wish it wasn't that much work and a lot of people, they all agree with 16-17 year old boys doing that much work, but they say no, this is too much for the girls and I'
  • Embargoed: 8th October 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
  • Country: Australia
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA2LY7PXNIO46G8Y1RW5VP1JS6S
  • Story Text: One of the world's greatest ever gymasts, Nadia Comaneci has had a tumultuous life, but she says she is now at peace and looking forward to the future.
    A raft of perfect tens at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 catapulted 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci to international stardom but not to happiness.
    The young gymnast felt trapped in Romania, at the time under the iron grip of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, so in 1989 she made the most momentous decision of her life - to escape across the border.
    Scrambling to freedom in pitch darkness for six hours across icy countryside, she and a group of six others tumbled into the arms of Hungarian police and into a new life in America.
    Now 38, Comaneci reflects calmly on the most dangerous moment of her life.
    "I didn't realise how dangerous that was, because I would have been shot, being shot at that time, the meaning of that, it was like meaningless, when you have something in your mind and you want to do it, that's the way I am, I go for it, I don't go back so when I think about it now, I could have been shot, but I made it I guess," says Comaneci, who now runs a gymnasts academy in Oklahoma with her American husband.
    She was not able to visit her homeland again until 1994 where she was given the key to her home town of Onesti and reunited with her father.
    Comaneci, however, is someone who looks to the future rather than dwelling on the past.
    "I've been at peace many years I think, it just feels that everything happened in a different life and I think that everybody's life is a rollercoaster because if it's a perfect life, nobody cares to interview people who have a perfect life, you learn through, when you go a little down, you learn that, when you make a mistake, next time you're not going to make it, so I kind of, although now I think of the future, I don't go back at all," says Comeneci.
    As for those gold medals, Comaneci says they remain hidden away.
    "People ask me, do you ever watch your tapes, no I don't watch my tapes, do you look at your medals, no I don't look at my medals because they are in a box, they came in a box and they are in a box and I don't display them in the house," said Comaneci.
    Comaneci is proud that the Romanian women's team clinched the gold at this year's Olympics, and she dismisses suggestions that female gymnastics exerts too much pressure on young women.
    "A lot of people, we know that not only in gymnastics but in a lot of sports to get to this level it's a lot of work, we wish it wasn't that much work and a lot of people, they all agree with 16-17 year old boys doing that much work, but they say no, this is too much for the girls and I'm like, what do you mean, we can't do like you guys do? You know, because everybody's like, she's 16, 17, don't you think it's too much pressure, Ian Thorpe is 17, don't you think he's got a lot of pressure too? Why is it that the guys can do it and the girls can't, don't take away this from us, because we can do it," said Comaneci.
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