COMANECI`S FREE OF ONE MORE DICTATORSHIP
Phil Hersh, Chicago Tribune.
Published: Monday, July 30, 1990
Section: SPORTS

Page: 1

Nadia Comaneci walked into the room with a spring in her step, a smile on her lips, a twinkle in her eye.

The perfect 10 of the Montreal Olympic was back-older, wiser and in some ways no less fetching.

There were no more stiff upper lips, furtive glances from hollow eyes, sallow skin stretched over puffy cheeks.

That was the Nadia Comaneci we had seen most recently, the refugee acting like a fugitive, the 1976 Olympic pixie turned into apparent adulteress by the man who helped her escape from Romania on Nov. 25 and come to the United States three days later.

For the next three months, she was led in a cross-country quest for Hollywood dollars by erstwhile Florida roofer Constantin Panait. The woman we had known only as a little girl of 14 at the Montreal Olympics suddenly was dressed as if her Hollywood business was on the corners of Hollywood Boulevard instead.

It was like seeing Cinderella in pornographic movies. The American public, which had cheered her arrival on its soil, was immediately repulsed by her liaison dangereuse with the mysterious Panait, the father of four children.

Sunday, Comaneci was dressed in a loose-fitting jump suit that would have attracted a second glance only because it was lime green. She was sitting with Alexandru Stefu, her new manager, a man with a considerable profile in the Montreal sports community.

She separated from Panait in early March, a split involving as much intrigue as her flight from the regime of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. She and Stefu said the relationship with Panait, a fellow Romanian, was physical only when he abused her.

The last few months, Comaneci has lived quietly by herself in a second-floor apartment above Stefu and his family near the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

Only lately has she tried to repair the damage to her golden image. Stefu, a former Romanian national rugby coach, thought that immediately revealing the truth about her relationship with Panait only would add more sensational elements to an already lurid story.

``I wanted to let the time prove that I am the same person that America knew when I was a gold winner at the Olympic Games,`` Comaneci said.

The country would have known that already, Comaneci said, if Panait had let her speak. She said Panait exercised total control over her with the threat of re-turning her to Romania.

Stefu said that even Panait`s allegedly jilted wife was part of a scheme to use Comaneci as a cash cow, selling her to magazine and television interviews around the world. The Panaits have not been available for comment. Stefu became involved through Bela Karolyi, Comaneci`s former coach in Romania and now the most prominent gymnastics coach in the United States.

``Physically, the change since a few months after her arrival is amazing,`` Karolyi said. ``I`m glad seeing her again very presentable and elegant and with good, quote-unquote, American manners.

``I always knew she was a smart individual, and she would pick up whatever was necessary. It happened so fast, all I can do is congratulate her.``

Throughout the early part of her stay in the United States, Comaneci said she wanted nothing to do with Karolyi. They had their first real meeting in nine years at an exhibition she did with U.S. gymnast Bart Conner three months ago in Reno, Nev.

``What I felt, I can`t explain,`` Comaneci said. ``I started to cry. All along, I wanted to see him, but I wasn`t allowed to (by Panait). It was all a misunderstanding.``

Panait`s grip over Comaneci eventually was loosened by greed, Stefu said. He arranged a visit with Panait and Comaneci in Los Angeles on the premise of having a deal to offer in Canada. At that meeting, Panait would not let Comaneci out of his sight, but her nonverbal communication convinced Stefu something was wrong.

The proposed deal sounded good enough for Panait to bring Comaneci to Montreal, where Stefu finally spoke with her alone. Two days later, Panait was gone, leaving Comaneci $1,000 but keeping some $150,000 she had made from appearances.

That left Stefu in charge. He had run a fitness center and helped prepare the fitness programs, physical and mental, for the Montreal police.

Stefu thought it best for Comaneci to settle in Quebec. It was something of the return of a native because French
Canadians share Latin roots with Romanians and the experience of having hosted her moment of Olympic glory.

``Quebec thinks of Nadia as their star,`` Stefu said. ``For we Romanians, she is national pride.``

Her business affairs have been turned over to International Management Group, the world`s largest sports management and marketing company. At the Goodwill Games, she has been doing television commentary on gymnastics.

The story of her final days in Romania and her turbulent relationship with Nicu Ceausescu, the dictator`s son, will be told in a movie to which Disney owns the rights. An older Romanian-made movie in which she played a bit part, Symphony of Sport, has been released in the United States.

Comaneci is training every day, even here, to do a lengthy tour in Japan with Conner, a member of the U.S. team gold medalists at the 1984 Olympics. She also will advise Canadian gymnasts.

First of all, though, she needs to deal with the past.

``I need more time,`` she said. ``It is not so easy to cross the border. If you were not born in a communist country, if you were born in a free country, it is hard to understand what this means, to cross the border. Only now I realize what I did a few months ago.

``I need time to put my feet on the ground. I need an adaptation. If you were in a closed country like mine, you didn`t realize what was happening around the world.``

A few weeks after she left, the Ceausescu government was overthrown and the dictator was executed. Some believe her departure helped undermine Ceausescu because she was seen as a symbol of Romanian success.

In Romania, Comaneci was a privileged bird in a gilded cage. Then she unwittingly traded that life to be, in her words, ``held hostage`` by Panait. ``Now I can tell all the people what I have on my mind,`` she said. ``I am happy I can explain all the things that happened to me.

``I want people to understand I did a positive thing.``

In April, Italian friends arranged for Comaneci to have a Papal audience. ``If the Pope can accept me,`` she told Stefu, ``I cannot be so bad.``