Nadia Comànci - Wonderful Woman No. 115

Nadia Comànci - Born 1961
Romanian Gymnast

Added to the album by Howie, A Wonderful Man

I went to gymnastics at our local sports centre after seeing her on TV when was little. I learnt how to do backflips on the beam and swing on the aysemetric bars.
Natalie, A Wonderful Woman

Spotted for her gymnastic skills whilst aged just seven, Nadia Comànci became one of the world's best known Gymnasts and inspired a generation of young girls, just like Natalie.

In 1976, still only fourteen years old, Nadia competed in the Montreal Olympics. She gave flawless performance and received a perfect score from all judges, a feat previously thought to be unachievable in the Olympic event. 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.

She moves with measured care although this is obscured by the ease which is such a feature of her performance. On one handstand she swung her legs overhead so tantalisingly slowly that it seemed as if she did not have the momentum to reach the position. But she did – and then lingered there, as if to emphasise the smoothness of the action before continuing her routine.
The Guardian, 1976

Nadia won nine gold medals in European Championships, two golds in the world championships and she returned as an Olympian in Moscow 1980, where whe won a further two gold medals, along with two silvers.

Nadia struggled in her native Romania under the regime of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Her mother once claimed that Nadia had been raped by the dictator's son, though this is something Nadia herself denies. She has spoken at length about feeling like a prisoner in the country and having a longing for liberty. In 1989, a few weeks before the country's revolution, Nadia fled Romania to start a new life in the USA.

We haven't featured many sports women in the blog, so far, and in truth, the album does not contain as many sports women as it does women from other fields. I guess it takes a special kind of woman to impact and impress from the field of sports and Nadia certainly qualifies as that.

Life is tough for everybody... It would be great if you could discover a way of working very little and being successful, but there isn't one.
Nadia Comànci