Dark Secrets But details remained sketchy about her life in communist Romania, the elite world of gymnastics, and her escape to the West.
Nadia And The Securitate, a new book by historian Stejarel Olaru, exposes some of the dark secrets and mind-numbing surveillance that communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu employed to keep tabs on the young gymnast, who was propaganda gold for him and his destitute country. The book, which draws mainly on declassified files of the infamous communist secret police, opens with Comaneci's risky escape in late November On a pitch-black night with a full moon, local guide and shepherd Ghita Talpos led six people on a six-hour journey past Romanian border guards into Hungary.
Talpos only found out that night that Comaneci was part of the group. I was "surprised and intimidated," he says in the book. Years later, she claimed Panait held her captive after she had immigrated to the United States and took money from her. Declassified Files When they reached Hungary, officials there planned to send some of the group back to Romania.
But Comaneci insisted that they all receive the same treatment. The Securitate began spying on Nadia when she was 13, shortly after she won medals at the European gymnastics championships in Skien, Norway.
The surveillance continued until she fled Romania. There was contradictory information. The Securitate files contain reports about the sometimes brutal training program of controversial coaches Bela Karolyi and his wife, Marta, who defected to the United States in and went on to great success training the U.
S national gymnastics team and running one of the country's preeminent gymnastics schools. He knew about some of the agents, such as the team doctor, and team choreographer Geza Pozsar, as he had friends in the Securitate. The book reveals that beatings, name-calling, and a lack of food to keep the gymnasts' extra slim were common. Medical treatment was sometimes denied to sick or injured gymnasts and even water was rationed, the files reveal.
Such measures helped control the young girls. Of the difficult handling, Gorgoi said: "The end justifies the means," explaining that it was necessary to keep the girls' weight under control to meet the demands of the sport.
He declines to further criticize Bela Karolyi, saying that "he has Alzheimer's now and it's not nice to speak badly about him. Karolyi took a "handful of magnesium powder, put it on her wound, and told her to do another exercise. Gorgoi said Karolyi ignored the team doctor's advice and the unnamed gymnast competed on the parallel bars in a meet with her wound. He added that Marta Karolyi "was severe in and out of the gym," an opinion that Gorgoi shares.
Securitate officer Ioan Popescu, an official member of Romania's national gymnastics delegation, filed a report in when the team was in Spain. Popescu was one of the officers who would sometimes sneak food to the hungry gymnasts, like Comaneci and Ungureanu. The girls sometimes even ran way, only to be brought back by the Securitate.
Karolyi regularly called Comaneci the "champion cow" vaca medialiata and other names. Karolyi told Comaneci in before a tour of Mexico that "You'll have to eat air there. But watch out, air is fattening. The gymnasts were sometimes so hungry that they ate toothpaste. Moscow G Balance Beam. G Floor Exercise. S Individual All-Around. S Team All-Around.
Montreal B Floor Exercise. Track and field star Alice Coachman made history at the Olympic Games, becoming the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal. In , Dominique Dawes won Olympic gold with the U. American runner Allyson Felix has won nine Olympic medals, making her the most decorated woman in U. Tonya Harding is an American figure skater who ruined her future in the sport when she was implicated in the attack on fellow skater Nancy Kerrigan at the Winter Olympic trials.
His long jump world record stood for 25 years. Olympic gold medalist Florence Joyner brought style to track and field with form-fitting bodysuits, six-inch fingernails and amazing speed. She still holds the world records in the and meter events. Swimmer Michael Phelps has set the record for winning the most medals, 28, of any Olympic athlete in history. In , Wilma Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in track and field at a single Olympics.
American swimmer Gertrude Ederle achieved fame when she competed in the Olympics and became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in Nadia Comaneci is a Romanian gymnast who became the first woman to score a perfect 10 in an Olympic gymnastics event in , at age
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