MONTREAL WELCOMES NADIA BACK
By Linda Kay, Special to The Tribune.
Published: Monday, March 12, 1990
Section: SPORTS
Page: 8

Four months after her unhappy landing in the United States, Nadia Comaneci flew here from Florida a little longer than a week ago on what appears to be a scouting trip for a new home.

The former Romanian gymnast is weighing job offers that would make her a resident of the city in which she enjoyed her greatest athletic triumph-her golden performance in the 1976 Olympic Games.

Many here have vivid memories of her dramatic routines in the Olympic arena. She remains an extremely popular figure here and was welcomed with flowers and open arms when she and Constantin Panait, the married Florida roofer with whom she was involved, arrived at Montreal`s Dorval Airport for a visit of undetermined length.

Since their arrival, Panait has left, and Comaneci has announced through her agent they have parted ways.

``I`m very happy to be back in Montreal,`` she told reporters in French and English.

Her one-way airline ticket was paid for by Molson Breweries, owner of the Montreal Canadiens and promoter of many other sports activities. All indications are the ex-Olympian could linger here for quite some time.

Speculation about Comaneci`s plans began when a sports columnist for the French-language daily newspaper La Presse reported the head of the Montreal Olympic Stadium governing board was considering hiring Comaneci to work in a public relations capacity.

The head of the Romanian Association of Quebec said he believes Comaneci would stay in Montreal if she could ``establish`` herself. ``She wants to get in contact with her past,`` Jean Taranu remarked.

Comaneci is being squired around the city by Alexandru Stefu, a Romanian defector who formerly coached that nation`s junior rugby team and now is working for Montreal`s Olympic Stadium. He escorted her on a tour of Olympic Stadium and the surrounding Olympic Park, where Comaneci earned seven perfect 10`s and three gold medals in 1976.

A spokesman for the stadium governing board, formally known as Regie des Installations Olympiques (RIO), said there have been no job negotiations with Comaneci. ``But,`` added Brigette Tremblay, ``we do not close the door.`` Also espousing an open-door policy is the general director of the Quebec Federation of Gymnastics. ``I want to discuss her intentions and the role she`s ready to take on,`` said Lyne Heward.

So far, Comaneci has not responded to the federation`s attempts to reach her, which is not surprising. Since her defection from Romania last November, she reportedly has rebuffed overtures from the United States Gymnastics Federation and spurned her former Romanian coach, Bela Karolyi, who now owns a training facility in Texas, where he routinely cranks out U.S. Olympians.

Though she was expected to affiliate with either Karolyi or the U.S. fedration (whose officials were delighted with the prospect), a return to gymnastics in any capacity apparently was not in her plans.

But Comaneci`s public indifference to her former sport has not dissuaded Heward. ``She was the idol of 1976,`` says the Quebec federation chief, ``so it`s very normal we`d be interested in her.``

While she was viewed as a fallen idol by some Americans for her affair with Panait, Comeneci still is remembered fondly in Montreal.

``Here nobody really cares if Constantin left his wife and four children in Florida for Nadia,`` said Denis Arcand, a French-Canadian journalist for La Presse. ``The person they remember is the incredible little gymnast who completely seduced this place in 1976. She`s extremely popular.`` So popular that scores of Quebec teenagers who were born soon after the 1976 Olympics are named Nadia.