About Nadia Comaneci
Nadia Elena Comăneci Conner, known professionally as Nadia Comăneci, was born on November 12, 1961 and is a Romanian retired gymnast and a five-time Olympic gold medalist with an estimated net worth of $12 million. Nadia scored the famous perfect 10 at the Montreal summer Olympics of 1976. She was born on November 12, 1961 in Onesti, Romania and began gymnastics in kindergarten at the age of 6. In 1969, she started to compete with her hometown team. Soon after putting in countless hours into her training regime, she became the youngest gymnast to win the Romanian Nationals.
She attended the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The 14-year-old athlete was suddenly thrust into the spotlight after winning three Olympic gold medals. In Montreal, Nadia Comaneci was the first gymnast to score a perfect 10.0 in the Olympics.
In 1976 she was named Personality of the Year by the BBC in the overseas athletes category. The associated press also named her Female Athlete of the Year. She is so famous in the gymnastic world, that two moves on the uneven bars are named after Nadia. The first is the “toe-on, half-turn to a back flip dismount” and the second is a release move “a cast-to-straddle front flip”.
Comaneci was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1993, and has twice (in 1984 and 2004) received the Olympic Order. That is the most prestigious award given by the International Olympic Committee. In 1999, ABC News and Ladies Home Journal named her as one of the 100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century. In 2000, she was named as one of the athletes of the century by Laureus World Sport Academy. Nadia Comeneci retired at the age of 20, and her official retirement ceremony was in 1984. At the end of her career, she earned a total of five golds, three silvers and one bronze in the Olympics.
She married Bart Conner, an American gymnast and they have a son named Dylan. She co-owns the Bart Conner Gymnastics Academy with her husband, and she is involved with International Gymnast magazine, Perfect 10 Productions, Inc. and Grips Etc., a gymnastic supplies company.
Honors and awards:
- 1975 and 1976: The United Press International Athlete of the Year Award
- 1976: Hero of Socialist Labour
- 1976: Associated Press Athlete of the Year
- 1976: BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year
- 1983: The Olympic Order
- 1990: International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame
- 1993: International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
- 1998: Marca Leyenda
- 1998: Flo Hyman Award
- 2004: The Olympic Order
- 2016: Great Immigrant Honoree: Carnegie Corporation of New York
- 2017: She was recognized as one of the BBC’s 100 women of 2017.
- 2021: Order of the Star of Romania, Grand Officer
