COMANECI, NADIA

born Nov. 12, 1961, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Romania Romanian gymnast, the first to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. Comaneci was discovered by Bela Karolyi, later the Romanian gymnastic coach, when she was six years old. She first competed in the national junior championships in 1969, placing 13th, and won the competition in 1970. Her first international competition was in 1972 in a pre-Olympic junior meet for the Communist-bloc countries in which she won three gold medals, and in 1973 and 1974 she was all-around junior champion. In her first international competition as a senior in 1975, she bested the Russian Lyudmila Turishcheva, the five-time European champion, winning four gold medals and one silver. She won the American Cup in New York City in 1976, becoming the first woman to perform a backward double salto as a dismount from the uneven parallel bars. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Comaneci received seven perfect scores and won the gold medals for the balance beam and the uneven bars. She finished a disappointing fourth in the world championships in 1978, however, and was out of competition during most of 1979 with an infected hand. At the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, she won gold medals for the beam and the floor exercises (tying for first in the latter event with Nelli Kim of the U.S.S.R.). She won a silver medal as a member of her team and tied with Maxi Gnauck of East Germany for second place in the all-around individual competition. She retired from competition in 1984. After the 1976 Games, she was named a Hero of Socialist Labour by her country. Com aneci defected to the United States in 1989. In 1996 she married the American gymnast Bart Conner.