Nadia Comaneci: The Perfect 10
July 21, 1976
MONTREAL-On the uneven bars, she whirls as easily as a
sparrow fluttering from limb to limb on a tree. On the balance beam, she clings
to it as surely as a squirrel would. On the vault, she lands as softly as a sea
gull on a beach. In her floor exercises, she is part go-go dancer, part
ballerina, part cheerleader. And today Nadia Comaneci, her dark pigtails tied
with red and white yarn, won her first Olympic gold medal as the allround
champion in women's gymnastics. But at 14 years old, she is not a woman. An
athlete, yes; an artist, yes. But with her 80-pound rubber body, she's hardly
much more than a child. That, of course, is the essence of her charm.
The Rumanians knew that Nadia was technically superior to any of the Soviet
gymnasts. They also knew that Olga Korbut had used her charm to upstage her
teammate, Ludmilla Tourischeva, the brooding beauty who won the all-round gold
medal at Munich four years ago. Gymnastics has been one of the purest forms of
sport for 150 years, but now, ever since television recorded Olga Korbut's tears
and triumphs at Munich, gymnastics also is show biz, especially Olympic women's
gymnastics. And so the Rumanians reminded Nadia to smile and wave. Not
boastfully. Softly and naturally was enough, both for her and for the television
people.
At 14, as a Barbie doll with bangs, Nadia Comaneci was perfect as Olga Korbut's
television successor. She also was perfect as a gymnast. Five times (all three
on the uneven bars, twice on the beam) she has been awarded a perfect 10 score.
It registers as "1.00" on the electronic scoreboard because 9.99 is the board's
limit. The perfect 10 score was considered unattainable in the Olympics until
Nadia attained it once Sunday, twice Monday and twice today. Not that she
considered it unattainable. "I've done it," she said, "20 times now."
One a scale of 1 to 10, she has made the scoring scale outmoded. On a scale of 1
to 10, she really deserves an 11 for what she has accomplished in relation to
the scores of other gymnasts. Because of the restrictions of the scoring scale,
many gymnastic observers thought that her dominance over the other competitors
was not as wide as it should have been. Her aptitude for gymnastics was
discovered in kindergarten. It was confirmed in a recent aptitude test that some
of the European nations give their gymnasts.
"The numbers from 1 to 100 are mixed up on a piece of paper," says Art Maddox,
the pianist for the United States Olympics women's gymnasts. "You get four
minutes to go from one number to another. It might sound easy, but it's not. I'm
told that Nadia had the highest score anybody ever got-72, as I remember."
Aptitude is one thing. Performance is another. And today, in winning the
all-around gold medal Nadia performed virtually impeccably at the Forum, the
Montreal Canadiens' hockey shrine.
In today's competition, she opened with a respectable 9.85 on the vault, added
her third consecutive 10 on the uneven bars, another perfect 10 on the beam and
concluded with a 9.9 in her floor exercises. By that time, all the other
competitors were watching her except the Soviet athletes, who never seem to look
at her as she performs. That assured Nadia Comaneci's coronation as the queen of
the Olympics, the successor to Ludmilla Tourischeva in skill and to Olga Korbut
in show biz.