Standing near the gym where they practiced before the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal is a memorial commemorating the Romanian Women’s Gymnastics team’s achievements at the event. Even though the monument bears the name of the leading and most famous gymnast, Nadia Comăneci, it lists the names of all the gymnasts, coaches, and assistant coaches at the Romanian Women’s Gymnastics team to these Olympic Games.
Eremia Grigorescu created it. The monument features two gymnasts on a beam that stands above the five Olympic rings, held by a sign states Romania. On the plinth is a bronze plaque listing the medals the team won at the event.
Nadia Comăneci was born in 1961 in Onești, Romania. She started her gymnastics journey when she was six years old and her professional career when she was nine, winning national and international competitions.
At the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal, 14 years old Comăneci won seven perfect scores of 10, becoming the first and youngest gymnast in the history of Olympic gymnastics to win a perfect score.
In her career, Comăneci won nine Olympic medals, nine perfect 10 scores, and four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship medals. In 1984 she retired from gymnastics.
Three years later, Comăneci crossed the Hungary-Romania border to Austria and flew to the US. She settled in Oklahoma and joined her then-friend and later husband, the fellow gymnast Bart Conner, in establishing the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy.
In 1996 she returned to Romania for their wedding and was welcomed as a national hero.
This post is also available in:
Español
This post is also available in:
Español
