Women in Sport: The Girl Who Scored the Impossible, Nadia Comăneci’s Perfect 10

To win a gold medal at the Olympics you have to be a remarkable athlete. 

To be the first in history to accomplish something at the Olympics whilst winning that gold medal, you must be exceptional. 

To never have anyone being able to break that record, whilst being the first, and whilst winning a gold medal at the Olympics, you must be legendary. 

Nadia Comăneci was just six years old when she discovered a love affair with gymnastics in communist Romania. It was her mother who pushed her to stay in it primarily because she had too much energy and was a handful to cope with. 

She had been noticed doing cartwheels at school with a friend and was sought out (her friend, Viorica, actually became a world class ballerina). She was placed at the gymnastics school (many students had to live there, but the school was in her hometown), and at age nine, in 1970, she became the youngest gymnast ever to win the Romanian Nationals. 

She continued this vein of winning - she truly was a natural - culminating in winning every event bar one (the Floor, where she came second), at the 1975 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Norway. Next up, the 1976 American Cup at Madison Square Garden in NY, where she achieved a rare perfect 10 in the Vault. There was now only one event for her to compete in. 

At the age of fourteen at the Summer Olympics in Montreal, Nadia Comăneci, took the World by storm and made the Olympics all her own. 

She became the first ever gymnast to score a 10.00 in the Uneven Bars; it was totally unprecedented, but Nadia had only just gotten started. 

Over the course of her events, she went on to score another six perfect 10.00's. Omega, who was the official scoreboard manufacturer had been led to believe that a 10 was impossible, so had not programmed the board to display it: 1.00 was shown instead. 

Seven perfect scores, three gold medals, the first Romanian to win the Olympic All Round Event, and the youngest ever gold gymnastic medalist at the age of fourteen. The rules have since been amended that all gymnasts must be at least sixteen, meaning her record will never be broken. 

In her career she achieved twenty-three gold medals (five Olympic), eight silver, and two bronze, plus numerous awards - the World had never seen anything like her. 

She had considered retiring during the late 70s, but did not do so until 1984, after Romania held an official retirement ceremony for her. 

Her travelling was now totally restricted and whilst she had had a chance to defect, she chose to stay in Romania, until that is in 1989. She had been under strict surveillance by the Romanian authorities and followed her everywhere. With a group of other Romanians, she travelled into Hungary and on into Austria eventually boarding a flight to the United States, and became a US citizen in 2001 (holding onto her Romanian citizenship). 

She is married to her best friend Bart Connor, an Olympic gold medallist himself, and the ceremony was held in 1996 in her home country of Romania. Today she helps gymnasts, and has even done some acting. Books have been written about her, TV shows and movies have been made about her - the little girl who loved to do cartwheels became an Olympic Legend.