COMANECI DESCRIBES ORDEAL

Tuesday, October 16, 1990
Section: SPORTS
Page: 2D
Observer News Services * Edited by Thomas Torrence

Memo: IN BRIEF

Nadia Comaneci has found happiness in Canada after being held prisoner for three months by the married man who helped her escape from Romania, she said. ``I had a bad life in Romania,`` Comaneci said Monday at a news conference in New York announcing she had been inducted into the International Women`s Sports Hall of Fame by the Women`s Sports Foundation. ``I had a bad life there.``

Three months after she first told her story of how Constantin Panait helped her escape, then held her prisoner, physically abused her and took $150,000 from her, Comaneci says she still plans to write a book about her ordeal. She said it will deal with her rise to the world`s best gymnast at age 14 to her fall to shame in her home country and her current life. A movie is in the works, too.

In the U.S., she thought she would find freedom, but that was hardly the case. She said Panait kept her under constant surveillance, and moved with her around the country, from Florida to Los Angeles to New York, before taking her to Canada.

Panait, whom Comaneci says nearly destroyed her life, is back in Romania, she said.

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