COMANECI`S DISAPPEARANCE TURNS HER DEFECTION INTO INTERNATIONAL MYSTERY
By Phil Hersh. Tribune wire services
contributed to this report.
Published: Friday, December 1, 1989
Section: SPORTS
Page: 12

The case of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci is turning into a story of international intrigue.

Comaneci, 28, who won five Olympic gold medals and earned the first perfect score in Olympic gymnastics history, has disappeared after fleeing from Romania into Hungary before dawn Wednesday.

Some fear the Romanian secret police are after her.

Others think she is working her way toward the United States and has probably found safe haven in an American embassy.

Bela Karolyi of Houston, her ex-coach and fellow Romanian defector, got three mysterious phone messages in French from a caller in Hungary while he was away from his Swiss hotel Wednesday. Comaneci speaks fluent French, according to Karolyi.

Karolyi, who is now in Stuttgart, West Germany, said Thursday the last message was that, ``The next call would come from the embassy in Bern, Switzerland.``

A spokesman for the embassy denied that Comaneci was there or had been there, and the State Department in Washington said she had neither contacted U.S. authorities nor sought refuge in any U.S. embassies.

Karolyi thinks that is just the ``official statement so the embassy would not be taken over by assault`` from the media.

Karolyi expressed concern that the Romanian government would try to bring back Comaneci, whom he called ``the most promiment personality in the country.``

``The Romanian secret police are a real danger,`` he said, speaking by phone from Stuttgart. ``Given the circumstances, you can only imagine what kind of desperate actions they would take in order to recapture Nadia or make her silent.

``I hope she will stay quiet until things calm down. I wouldn`t like to see her traveling around Europe now.``

The only person who says she has heard from Comaneci since her flight said Thursday that Comaneci did not seem frightened.

``Nadia, whom I spoke to on the telephone Wednesday, did not appear to be worried,`` Romanian defector Teodora Ungureanu told Reuters Thursday.

Ungureanu, a former teammate of Comaneci who lives in France, said: ``She told me she wanted to leave for the United States.``

Geza Pozsar, Comaneci`s former choreographer who defected to the U.S. with Karolyi in 1981, said coming to the U.S. ``would be the logical step for Nadia to take. She needs to get as far away from Romania as possible.``

Pozsar, speaking from Sacramento, Calif., said he had heard the gymnast was caught trying to escape before.

She was apparently driven to defect when the government refused to let her travel.

``The last two years, Nadia was kept under close surveillance,`` Pozsar said.