Montreal's girlfriend turns 50

For all those who had the opportunity to meet through the television, even for those who knew her age after years, Nadia Comaneci has always been associated with an iconic image: that of a teenager clad in a white jersey combed bangs and a ponytail with an electronic scoreboard that reflected the score, beyond the grasp of 10.00.

It was that moment, and that happened in later days during the Montreal Olympics in 1976, that changed the course of a sport, women's artistic gymnastics. A milestone comparable in importance to break Bob Beamon in Mexico 1968 or the seven gold medals in swimming Mark Spitz in Munich 1972. A before and after the July 19, 1976.

That girl with long legs and grimly christened at that time as the bride of Montreal, yesterday met 50 years. And despite the time elapsed, an eventful life, his name remains the most celebrated athlete of the twentieth century and admired.

You can find numerous honors athletes with a larger and brighter than the Romanian, even in their own sport, but none has left a mark so deep as Comaneci. Before his international appearance in 1975, when he proclaimed European champion at age 13, women's gymnastics was renowned figures, yes, as the Czech Vera Caslavska or Turistcheva and Ludmila Soviet Olga Korbut, but in mannerisms and corseted without a trace of emotion.

Comaneci was formed from the eight-year marriage of coaches Bela and Martha Karoly, who breathed soul into this sport. His perfection, his charisma, the fact that a girl from a small country like Romania late challenge and overcome the powerful representatives of the Soviet empire, praised his gym and his popularity to heights unknown.
However, she does not consider the first Modern Gymnast: "No. I think that role would correspond to Olga Korbut in Munich 72. With her ​​popularity began to grow in the gym. Then, what happened in Montreal had a greater impact and therefore reminds me more of me than it ", claimed this week MARK, during a forum held in London for Laurus Sports Foundation, which is an ambassador Comaneci.

Revolutionary
"dazzled for three reasons," says the Spanish women's team, Jesus Carballo, who in those games went to the men's team. "For his personality, he was proud, introverted, almost to dislike, and due to their ability to concentrate. I had a great talent and was behind a huge workload, made ​​in Karoly."

Comaneci revolutionized devices such as balance beam, where it exhibited an absolute security, and the uneven bars, which introduced the loose, bequeathing some code with your name. In these two specialties garnered seven tens in Montreal, the first to be given in an official competition, but the markers of Swiss Timing could not compute the first day and showed a score of 1.00.

In these Games Nadia won the individual title, two more golds in bar and asymmetric, the team silver and bronze in the floor. Comaneci The phenomenon had not occurred with the current rules of the gym. It would have been forbidden to compete with 14 years and perfection would not have been rewarded with a 10, eliminated three years ago.

She acknowledges that nothing had been beaten. "No. Not really. When I got my thumbs up, people knew what it meant then a 10. Now everything is much more open, but also unfair and does not know exactly which corresponds to 14 or 15," says Nadia . "And I think the right age to compete should be from 15. That can compete in two Olympics. A girl aged 15 who was born in January Olympian, however good, will have to wait until 19 to participate in the Games and then it is too late, "he adds.

Comaneci was the first and only gymnast in three European titles straight chain (95, 77 and 79), but never won the World Cup. In 1978 I was in a crisis of growth and in 1979 he retired with a septicemia. In the Moscow Games and played in the attacking Soviet rivals had already cloned your workout. He had to settle for a single gold in balance beam and silver in the open competition and team. He retired in 1981, about to turn 21. Now fold the fifties, wearing a physicist who does not detract from that of his youth, but it's still remembered and admired as the bride of Montreal.