Nadia Elena Comaneci is the world famous Romanian gymnast, five-time Olympic champion, the first in the history of artistic gymnastics to receive 10 points for her performance.

Nadia Comaneci was born on November 12, 1961 in Onesti, Romania. The talent of a young athlete, as well as many hours of daily training and an extraordinary inner strength brought her many victories and titles. In addition to five Olympic gold medals (1976, Montreal, individual, log, uneven bars; 1980, Moscow, log, floor exercise), Nadya won 3 silver medals (1976, team; 1980, individual and team) and 1 bronze medal ( 1976, floor exercise), and also became a two-time world champion (1978, 1979), a nine-time European champion (1975, 1977, 1979), including a three-time absolute European champion (1975, 1977, 1979).

WITH early childhood Nadia Comaneci did gymnastics and enjoyed it a lot. According to the athlete herself, playing sports gave her more opportunities than her peers, because already at the age of 9-10 she visited many countries of the world.

10 points on uneven bars

At the age of 14, speaking at Olympic Games in Montreal, Nadia hoped she could perform the parallel bar program flawlessly. What was her reaction when the score of 1.00 appeared on the scoreboard ?! Nadya now does not remember her condition, she says that she did not immediately understand what happened, because she performed the program without error. And only her teammates explained to her that in fact it was the highest score. Nadia Comaneci became the first gymnast in history to achieve a score of 10 at the Olympic Games. With her performance, the athlete not only conquered the judges, but also caught them by surprise. After all, no one previously thought that such a flawless result was possible in artistic gymnastics, therefore, there was not even an estimate of "10.0", and the closest to this was the figure 1.00, which appeared on the scoreboard. The brilliant performance on the uneven bars was not the only one for the Romanian athlete. At the Games in Montreal, Comaneci won two more gold medals - in exercises on the balance beam and in the absolute championship. Moreover, the gold in the absolute championship was the first in the history of Romanian artistic gymnastics. Also Nadia Comaneci became the youngest winner of the gold award in this category. To this day, the gymnast's record has not been surpassed.

To the three gold awards, the gymnast added silver in team championship and a bronze medal in floor exercise. In general, in Montreal, the young 14-year-old athlete managed to win five Olympic awards. Comaneci rightfully became one of the heroines of the 1976 Olympic Games.

Moscow success

On the eve of her second Olympics, the already famous and venerable, but still quite young 18-year-old gymnast received a back injury. But after undergoing treatment and observing a gentle regimen during training sessions, she was able not only to take part in the Olympic Games in Moscow, but also to win two gold and two silver medals. This time, the gymnast won gold awards in floor exercises and on the crown beam, where for a long time she had practically no equal. In the team and absolute championship, Comaneci was the second. The athlete shared the silver medal in the absolute championship with the representative of the GDR Gnauk Maxi.

Gradually after 1980 Olympic Games Nadia Comaneci completed her sports career and became the coach of the Romanian national team.

Shortly before the revolution in Romania, in 1989, the gymnast fled from Romania to North America... At first she lived and worked in Montreal (Canada), and later moved to Oklahoma (USA) to her future husband, a gymnast, two-time Olympic champion Bart Conner. They got married in 1996, and only in 2001, Nadia Comaneci received US citizenship. At the same time, the gymnast also retained Romanian citizenship. Since the fall of the Ceausescu regime, Comaneci often visits his homeland and maintains ties with his home country.

In 2006, at the age of 44, Nadia gave birth to her 46-year-old husband's first child. The boy was named Dillan Paul. The former athlete admits that the birth of her son changed her life, life values ​​and priorities in many ways, but she still leads active image life, has versatile interests.

The family now lives in Oklahoma. Nadia and Bart publish their own magazine, run sports sections in other publications, and work at the Gymnastics Academy founded by Conner.

Nadia Comaneci is a member of the Laureus International Academy, which presents the best athletes of the year with awards similar to the Hollywood Oscars.

At home, Nadia Comaneci established a fund to provide assistance. She supports organizations that help patients with muscular dystrophy, and is also helping to build a children's hospital in Romania.

She also created a gymnastics school - "School of Nadia Comaneci". She admits that she loves children very much and therefore tries to help some charitable organizations, mainly related to children.In 2001, Comaneci opened the Champion restaurant in the center of Bucharest.

The former gymnast fondly recalls the years of her sports career, as well as friendship with Russian gymnasts - Maria Filatova, Olga Korbut,.

Having once received, for the first time in history, 10 points at the Olympic Games, Nadia does not lose her uniqueness. She is also the only one to have been awarded the IOC Olympic Order twice (1984 and 2004). In addition, she is the youngest holder of this award.

According to the poll “100 Greatest Romanians of All Time”, which was conducted in Romania in 2006, Nadia again got the top ten - took 10th place - the highest among contemporaries and among athletes.

Erotica makes it possible to earn more than sports. Keep on high level sports uniform gymnasts are more difficult than a body for eroticism. A beautiful gymnast will not be lost.

The Japanese Gymnastics Federation appealed to international sports bodies with a proposal to ban the participation of the Romanian team in the prestigious 2003 Grand Prix competitions in Yokohama. The demarche followed a Tokyo cable TV erotic film featuring disgraced sports stars. According to the organizers of the games, their behavior is "deeply offensive for gymnastics."

The chairman of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation, Nicolae Vieru, believes that the girls "tarnished the country's image by using the organization's emblem and costumes with the national tricolor in obscene photographs." He did not rule out that the perpetrators of the scandal will be deprived of a lifetime pension of $ 1.5 thousand, which they receive from the state as former world and Olympic champions.

Two-time Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics Lavinia Milosovich starred in an erotic film and for Playboy magazine

Elena DRAGA "FACTS"

18.12.2002

Representatives of the Japanese Gymnastics Association (JGA) intend to ban the Romanian team from participating in international tournament among juniors, which will be held next year in Yokohama. The Japanese are outraged by the fact that three famous Romanian gymnasts - Olympic medalists - starred in an erotic film, intended to be shown on Japan's pay-per-night TV channel. Japanese sports officials are about to ask the International Gymnastics Federation to remove the Romanian team from the scheduled next year junior tournament in Yokohama.

The violent protest from the Japanese turned into a huge scandal. Romanian daily newspapers have confirmed that two-time Olympic champion Lavinia Milosovic, as well as Corina Ungurianu and Claudia Presecan, posed nude for more than just the film. The rather candid photos were published in Playboy magazine.

Koji Takizawa, head of the Japan Gymnastics Association, said it was a shame for gymnastics in general, even if Milosovichi herself refused to take part in any competition after all this.

Although, as it turned out, all three gymnasts have not been part of the Romanian national team for a long time. Nevertheless, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation announced that "their act is a shame." The Romanian federation fears that representatives of other countries will join the call to boycott Romanian women, as a result of which no female athlete from this country will be able to enter the gymnastics platform anymore. The President of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation Nicolae Vieru said in an interview with the newspaper Adevarul that “these girls disgraced us - we didn’t deserve this. The Japanese were the first to react, and if other federations do the same, we will find ourselves in complete sports isolation. "

The Romanian gymnasts themselves, who found themselves in the center of a sex scandal, do not deny the fact of participating in the filming in the nude.

The President of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation Nicolae Vieru said that the retired gymnasts Lavinia Milosovici (two-time Olympic champion in Barcelona, ​​1992), Corine Ungureanu ( two-time champion world, 1997 and 1999) and Claudia Presekan (Olympic champion of Sydney, 2000) are prohibited from refereeing and coaching for five years. This punishment was given to gymnasts for filming nude for a Japanese magazine and video.

Such a harsh decision is due to the fact that the Japanese Gymnastics Association tried to use the fact of filming as an excuse to ban the participation of the Romanian national team at a major international tournament in Yokohama. However, the Romanian functionaries managed to defend their national team, since those who left the big sports scandalous gymnasts are no longer related to their national federation.

The Romanian media reported on the fees paid former stars Romanian gymnastics by the company that produced the shooting: according to various sources, each athlete received from $ 30,000 to $ 50,000.

For nearly forty years, Romanian gymnasts have been among the world's leaders. They won brilliant victories and always claimed gold in the largest gymnastic tournaments - the Olympic Games and World Championships. There has always been a Team in Romania - six perfectly trained athletes. All the more unexpected for the Romanian, and not only the Romanian fans, was their absence at the Games in Rio. Only 28-year-old Catalina Ponor managed to break into Rio. Let's try to trace this forty-year path of rise, rise and fall of Romanian gymnastics.

Romanian gymnasts first appeared at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki and came in a modest ninth place. Prior to that, it was not possible to find traces of the presence of the Romanian gymnasts - neither at the Games, nor at the world championships. The men tried to compete at the 1936 Games, but took deeply the last 24th place there and disappeared for 16 years. They also performed in Helsinki, but they were 20th (out of 23 teams) and disappeared again for several Olympic cycles. That is, gymnastics in the country seemed to be, but outwardly it did not manifest itself in any way.

Two years later, at the World Championships in Rome, Romanian gymnasts quite unexpectedly finished fourth in the team championship, and the 19-year-old Elena Leushtyan ranks fifth in the all-around.

At the 1956 Games in Melbourne, the young Romanian team will be a huge success: they win bronze in the team championship, and Leushteanu wins the first personal medal for Romania, bronze in floor exercise and takes fourth place in the all-around. Elena Leushtyan (21 years old), Sonya Iovan (21), Gheorgeta Hurmuzach (20), Elena Margarit-Nikulescu (20), Emilia Vatasoi-Lita (23), Elena Sakalich (21) are the first Olympic medalists Romania in artistic gymnastics.

At the 1958 World Championship in Moscow, Romanian girls again won bronze in the team championship. Best in all-around - Elena Sakalich-Petrosyan, ninth. Sakalichi died in 1959, at the age of 24, could not find a reason.

Games in 1960 in Rome, and the Romanian national team again wins bronze in the team. The core of the team is the winners of Sydney Leushtyan, Iovan, Lita, Nikulescu. Best in Team Sonya Iovan, fifth in the all-around.

But the gymnasts are not getting younger, little by little they begin to lag behind in the complexity of the combinations. Elena Leushtyan leaves, and there is no worthy replacement for her. Not only is there no replacement for aging leaders - there are no new young strong gymnasts.

At the 1962 World Championships, the Romanian team fell to ninth place, and at the Games in Tokyo-1964, it hardly moved to sixth place. Further - it only gets worse. The national team is gone. At the World Championships in Dortmund (1966), only three gymnasts performed, a participant in the Tokyo Games, 19-year-old Elena Chempelea (28th place), Maria Andriae (56) and Elena Tutan (57). At the Games in Mexico City (1968), the Romanian gymnasts did not come at all, although at that time everyone was allowed to start.

Meanwhile, the number of gymnastics schools in the country is gradually increasing, centers are emerging - Cluj-Napoca (from where Iovan and Sakalich came from), Brasov, Onesti, whose development was "played by" Maria Simionscu, whose husband was the director of the Physical Education Lyceum in Onesti. The coaching department is being strengthened, where several rather strong former gymnasts are leaving, for example, Emilia Lita. Finally, the most important thing in the history of Romanian gymnastics, Bela and Marta Karoji start working in Onesti.

Bela Karoji was born in 1942 in Cluj-Napoca. Former boxer, hammer thrower, graduated from the College of Physical Education, where he studied artistic gymnastics. There he met the gymnast Marta Eres, whom he married in 1963.The couple moved to Onesti, where they began to work in the gymnastics class. primary school... It was in Onesti in 1967 that they caught the eye of 6-year-old Nadia Comaneci (for us, Comaneci is more familiar).

In the late 1960s, Bela Karoji developed a centralized system for training gymnasts, which was used practically without significant changes in Romanian gymnastics until 2005. It was this system that brought Romania the most striking victories on the gymnastic platform.

But so far, the national team of the country did without the Karoyi spouses and their pupils.

Romanian girls come to the 1970 World Championships in Ljubljana and take fifth place in the team championship. Only Elena Cempelea remained in the team from the previous line-up, and Paula Ioan (15 years old), Elisabeth Turcu (17), Alina Goryak (18), Rodica Apateanu appeared in the team ... Not all of them will stay in the team for a long time, but it is clear that Romanian gymnastics is reborn.

At the 1972 Munich Games, Romanian girls ranked sixth. No medals, no apparatus finals. The best in the team, Elena Chempelea, 22nd in the all-around. But the team is already 14-year-old Anka Grigorash, adds Alina Goryak. Only Chempelea is over twenty years old, she is 25.

Perhaps the harbinger of the future victories of the Romanian gymnasts was the 1973 European Championship in London. Alina Gorya k showed the fourth result in the all-around, won silver on the uneven bars and bronze on the balance beam and freestyle.

Anka Grigorash in the all-around ninth, but with a bronze on a balance beam.

But at the 1974 World Championships in Varna, Romanian gymnasts are still without medals: 4th place in the team championship, 4th place Alina Goryak in the vault and 5 on the balance beam.

In the all-around, Alina Goryak is eighth, Anka Grigorash 12th, Aurelia Dobre 16th, Elena Chempelea 29th, Rodica Sabau 32nd, Paula Ivan 34th.

In 1974 he was appointed head coach of the national team Bela Karoji and a new page opens in Romanian gymnastics. By 1974, the group had grown up in Onesti. young gymnasts showing combinations of incredible difficulty. The main star of the group is Nadia Comaneci, who has not only the most difficult combinations, but also fantastic stability. All the experts who saw the girl on the platform unanimously asserted that this was the future superstar of world gymnastics.

Nadia Comanech appeared on the adult platform at the 1975 European Championships in Skien and immediately struck the entire gymnastic world on the spot. An absolutely unflappable 13-year-old girl won with a huge advantage in the all-around and on three apparatus, vault, parallel bars and beam. Only in floor exercises did she lose to Nelly Kim. Alina Goryak, who was assisting Nadia, finished sixth in the all-around and won bronze in the vault and on the balance beam.

A year later, at the Games in Montreal, the youngest team in the history of gymnastics entered the platform: 14-year-old Nadia Comanech and Gheorgeta Gabor, 15-year-old Teodora Ungureanu and Mariana Constantin, 18-year-old Anka Grigorash and Gabriela Trushka. Four students of Bela Karoya - Comanech, Ungureanu, Trushka and Gabor. Grigorash and Konstantin were preparing for the Games in the national team under the leadership of Karoya.

This team came to win. Already in training, Karolyi did not let the gymnasts out on the platform until the announcer called them by name. Slender, in the same form, with the same hairstyles and complex combinations, they were in the spotlight and came out onto the platform to the applause of the audience. In Montreal, there were many moments of psychological pressure on the gymnasts of the USSR, but they survived, and won gold in the team championship. Young Romanians were second.

And in the individual championship she shone Nadia Comanech.

Teodora Ungureanu fought for the silver, and before the final she was only 0.1 points behind Kim and Turischeva. However, the all-around final ended like that: gold - Comanech, silver - Kim, bronze - Turischeva, Ungureanu fourth.

And then Nadya won gold on uneven bars and a beam, bronze in free. Teodora Ungureanu added silver on the uneven bars and bronze on the log to the team silver.

Nadia Comanech instantly became an idol not only of Romania, but of the whole world. Even those who had never heard of gymnastics at all learned about it.

One year later at the European Championships in Prague Nadia Comanech wins the all-around, beating Soviet gymnasts Elena Mukhin and Nelly Kim. Teodora Ungureanu remains fourth again. The next day finals on individual shells.

Vault. Nadia Comanech jumps the same two jumps as a year ago in Montreal.

Not too high, not too far, but accurate landings. Estimate (half-sum) 9.750, and the amount taking into account the preliminary estimate 19.500.

Two hardest jump demonstrates Elena Mukhina... However, on landing, he makes quite serious mistakes.

The score in the final is 9.700, the sum is 19.450. She gives in to Nadia.

Nelly Kim jumps two jumps, and both are more difficult than Comanech. For the first jump she is given 9.75, for the second 9.80. Half-sum 9.775.

Kim is gaining 19.525 and is ahead of Nadia. Romania is protesting. The competition continues.

On the uneven bars, Comanech and Mukhina have the same preliminary score of 9.80. Nadia performs with blots, but gets 9.85, total 19.65.

Combination Elena Mukhina harder and performed no worse than Nadia's. But the estimate is the same, 9.85, and the amount is 19.65.

Bela Karoji is again dissatisfied with Comanech's assessment. He still sees judicial intrigues.

On the Balance Beam, Nadya is performing superbly, and gets 10.0, the only top ten in this championship.

Mukhina is a little more wrong, and she has 9.80.

Meanwhile, the jury leaves the protests of the Romanian team unsatisfied, and Bela Karoji takes the gymnasts off the platform, Nadia Comanech does not go to the free and to be awarded for the log. The gold on the log goes to Elena Mukhina. Lena also wins in floor exercises.

The 1978 season for Nadia was clearly not a success. It's puberty. In addition, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation decided to give the gymnast more freedom, freeing her from constant coaching care. As a result, as Comanech herself said, “I ate food that I was never allowed to. I put on a lot of weight, and not so much because of puberty, but because of overeating. "

Bela Karoji, with his characteristic black humor, later recalled that Nadia looked like this: "the creature that I saw was the size of a monster ... huge!"

At the World Championships in Starsburg, matured, noticeably rounded and with a new hairstyle, Comanech was only fourth in the all-around, having conceded three Soviet gymnasts. However, she still managed to win gold on the balance beam.

The training of the Romanian gymnasts was based on strict discipline, unquestioning obedience to coaches and repeated repetition of combinations in training. During one workout, the gymnasts repeated the combinations 11-12 times. Deviations from the established order were punished quite harshly, and the parents of the gymnasts also took part in the "executions". And this is understandable: after all, the members of the national team, including the substitutes, the second squad and the juniors, were fully supported by the state, received quite a decent salary, which often provided for the whole family. It is clear that children mainly from low-income families went to gymnastics, and their parents made every effort to get their girls to Deva, the main training center of Romanian gymnastics.

Nadia Comanech's freedom did not last long. The girl has already become a symbol of Romania, but who needs a fat and losing symbol? Nadya quickly got into shape, and in the spring of 1979 she won the European Championship in all-around and gold in the vault and floor exercise. And in the fall in Fort Worth, the Romanian team for the first time managed to get ahead of the USSR national team. Nadia performed excellently in the compulsory program, but was injured. In the free program, she came out only on a log. Nelly Kim became the absolute world champion. The best in the Romanian team, debutant Melita Rune won bronze in the all-around.

For the 1980 Games in Moscow, the Romanian national team and Nadia Comanech came up in excellent condition. Nadia has set her sights on a second undisputed Olympic champion. But in the all-around final on the final shell, the beam, she had to get 9.95 - and there would be gold. 9.90 - and she shares first place with Elena Davydova ...

For the performance on the balance beam, the judge from Bulgaria gave Nadia 10.0, another one - 9.90, the judges from Poland and the USSR - 9.80 each. The final score is 9.85. The referee on the balance beam, Romanian Maria Simonescu, for forty minutes refused to display this score on the scoreboard. The jury of appeal was involved in the controversy, Bela Karoji raged, but the score remained the same, 9.85. To be honest, Nadia didn't deserve more. She was quite liberally judged on the three previous shells, but on the log they still put exactly what she deserved.

After the Games, Karoji gave free rein to his fantasies in a press interview: “The Russians put their soldiers in the hall to make us nervous. What's the cruellest thing you can do to someone who is trying to focus? Name it. When Nadya spoke, the crowd shouted to her: "Fall, Nadia, fall."

Nadya herself does not remember anything like that: "Bela has her own memories, I have mine." Moreover, she rather critically assesses her performance: “Apart from a little swing, I made a few more mistakes. Rating 9.85 - very good result... I was not disappointed. " But the Federation and the Romanian fans were disappointed, as they expected only victory from Nadia. Even her victories on the beam and in the free did not brighten up the disappointment of defeat in absolute superiority.

In January 1981, Comanech toured America. The Nadia tour in 11 US cities was organized by the Romanian government and raised $ 250,000 for the state. Nadia herself received only $ 1,000. Moscow was not forgiven for too long a language ... After the 1980 Games, the government cut subsidies to the Karolyi school, the Federation sent Nadia to another coach, and Karoli, he believed, was threatened with jail. During the Nadia tour, the Karolis escaped from the hotel and asked for political asylum.

Upon her return to Romania, Nadia Comanech was under constant control. She was too valuable for the country to be allowed to lose in competition or escape. She never went to the platform again and turned out to be absolutely "restricted to travel abroad" - a symbol, what can I say ...

“My life has changed dramatically since the departure of Karoya. I was forbidden to travel outside Romania. Whenever the Gymnastics Federation included me on a travel schedule for some show tour, the list returned with my name crossed out. I was cut off even from those small sums of money that really influenced the life of my family. I began to feel like a prisoner. In fact, I've always been lonely. "

Nadia disappeared, and there were completely wild rumors about her: she tried to kill herself by drinking bleach; she lived with the dissolute son of the dictator, Nicu Ceausescu; According to Newsweek, she "lived like a rock star under a brutal regime that gave her an eight-room villa, a summer house, a nice car, jewelry, and a few servants." It was rumored that Nicu Ceausescu pulled out her nails when she refused to fulfill his sexual fantasies. Nadya found out about all these horror films much later, when in the 1990s she found herself in the United States.

Nadia disappeared, the Karoyi couple fled to the United States, but Romanian gymnastics remained. The head coach-coordinator was appointed Adrian Goryak.

Three participants of the Moscow Games took part in the 1981 European Championship in Madrid. Christina Grigoras won silver in the all-around and gold in the vault. In Madrid, Maxi Gnauk shone from the GDR, who took four gold from Spain.

But in the fall at the World Championships in Moscow, the Romanian team suffered a crushing defeat. In the team championship the girls were fourth, in the all-around Grigorash, Rodica Dunka and Lavinia Agache took 5th, 6th and 7th places. The Romanians performed in all four finals on shells and did not climb higher than fifth place. Not a single medal.

Lavinia Agache performed on fake documents - at that time she was only 13 years old. At the turn of the 1980s, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation has repeatedly come across such somersaults, it is enough to recall how, according to the documents of the same Agache, at the beginning of 1981, Ekaterina Sabo performed at a tournament in the USA. No one heard any intelligible explanations from the Federation.

Romanian gymnast celebrates her 35th birthday today Maria Olaru- Olympic champion in 2000, absolute world champion in 1999, European champion in 1998.

In the history of artistic gymnastics, there were much more titled athletes, but Olaru was remembered not only for the won medals. And not even a demarche in 2000, when, after the Games in Sydney, she announced her retirement, as the new rules "infringed upon the rights of tall gymnasts." Exactly one year ago, on her birthday at the Bookfest festival, she presented the book “The Price of Gold”.

I tried to explain that my back hurts very badly, but he did not listen. He slapped me in the face, knocked me off a log, punched me in the face, and then kicked me. The face is swollen, one eye is swollen.

“I could not listen to wild screams and ran out of the hall. The coach brought me back by force "

Now the passions have subsided, but a year ago they were raging with might and main, because in the book Olaru told the whole truth about how Romanian champions are trained in Deva - the Mecca of Romanian artistic gymnastics. One of the episodes is about how their own parents tortured athletes who were on the verge of being expelled from the national team (junior or adult).

“Once we were all gathered in large hall... The parents of Andrea Ulmianu, a girl who brought forbidden sweets for others, were summoned to the base. They wanted to exclude her from sports boarding school so that the rest were discouraged. But it turned out to be a public humiliation. Her father pulled the belt out of his pants and brutally beat his daughter.

I could not listen to her wild screams and ran out of the hall. Tears flowed from my eyes. But Octavian Belo ( Main coach women's national team of Romania. - Approx. "Championship") rudely forced me to return and continue to look at the torture. Nobody intervened, did not react ... Would my father have done the same if he had been in such a situation? It is not excluded, ”Olaru said.

According to former gymnast, this episode remained in her memory for the rest of her life. And this was not an isolated incident.

"He slapped me in the face, hit me in the face, then kicked me"

The women's national team of Romania did not make it to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, and only the famous Catalina Ponor represented the country in some forms. But before that there was a long domination in the world. How was this achieved? The principle is simple: you go out on the platform while you can, but you can't - get out of the sport.

“Training often turned into a mockery. Coaches could beat if something didn't work out for you. Once the coach (Olaru only mentions the last name Carpinishan. - Approx. "Championship") beat me up because I could not really do the exercise on the balance beam. I tried to explain that my back hurts very badly, but he did not listen. He slapped me in the face, knocked me off a log, punched me in the face, and then kicked me. The face is swollen, one eye is swollen. I came out of training with a feeling of animal fear, ”shared Olaru.

The coaches stopped, bought themselves food, but we were not allowed to go out. And we suffered because we heard these delicious smells. I had to swallow drool - we are ordinary work items, not living people.

The scary was not that you would be beaten, but the very inevitability of this, the athlete admitted. After the end of her career, to get rid of back pain, she had to get a titanium implant.

"If we suddenly ate too much, then we caused vomiting."

The athlete in her book also talked about the cruel diet on which the gymnasts were sitting. They were limited in almost everything.

“We found a savage way of dealing with our weight in situations where we suddenly allowed ourselves to eat something extra. Then it was necessary to artificially induce vomiting. But we did it secretly from the coaches, because they would have guessed right away. Some of the girls used the shower, but I was waiting for the toilet to be empty.

I was almost always hungry. On the way from Deva to Bucharest, there are a lot of cafes with pastries, and we often traveled along this route by bus, Olaru recalled. - So, the coaches stopped, bought themselves food, but we were not allowed to go out. And we suffered because we heard these delicious smells. This is an ordeal even for a well-fed person, not to mention a hungry one. I had to swallow drool - we are ordinary work items, not living people. "

Why tell it? So that people understand what they are doing

There are many such stories in Maria Olaru's book, including how the coaches of the national team forced athletes to give away prize money for winning competitions. According to her, she does not regret anything and does not blame anyone. “I am grateful to the coaches who made me an Olympic champion. Perhaps it would not have been possible in other conditions, ”Olaru stressed.

I am grateful to the coaches who made me an Olympic champion. It might not have been possible in other conditions.

The specialists mentioned in the book "The Price of Gold" preferred not to comment. Only Belu admitted that the practice of dividing the prize money really existed, but he does not remember the episodes with beatings - too many years have passed. According to Olaru, she wrote the book not in order to settle scores with someone, but to tell the truth and convey it to parents who send their children to gymnastics. Just to know what they are doing.

Olaru is not the first to tell the truth about Romanian gymnastics. Andrea Radukan, who failed a doping test in Sydney and was deprived of gold in the "absolute" due to a doctor's mistake, explained a lot in the book "The Other Side of the Medal", and Andrei Munteanu called artistic gymnastics "constant suffering".

Probably, this is not only for Romania, but also for many countries of the former socialist camp, including Russia. And it's actually scary.

If you study the list of Olympic champions in artistic gymnastics, you will be surprised to find that almost a third of all gold medals were collected by representatives of one European country - Romania. In our article you will find information about the most famous Romanian gymnasts, with photos and biographies, as well as learn about the main achievements of these athletes.

History of Romanian gymnastics: first victories

Gymnastics is to Romanians what football is to Spaniards or basketball is to Americans. A matter of honor. And especially the magnificent laurels are collected by the Romanian gymnasts. Olympic medals in the entire history they have won, no less, 59 pieces. Let's see why or to whom the Romanian artistic gymnastics was able to fly so high in sports world.



For the first time, Romanian gymnasts appeared at the 1952 Olympic Games, where they took a rather modest ninth place. The first Romanian star in this sport was Elena Leushtyan. In 1954, at the World Championships in Rome, she took the honorable fifth place in the all-around. She, two years later, won the first "bronze" for her country at the Olympic Games in Melbourne.

After that, Romanian gymnastics begins to degrade. By the mid-60s, the national team as such no longer existed. The gymnasts from Romania did not go to the Games in Mexico City (1968) at all, despite the fact that there was no preliminary qualification at that time. Meanwhile, in the country itself, a program for the development of sports and rhythmic gymnastics... Its centers were three cities - Onesti, Brasov and Cluj-Napoca.

At the end of the 60s, the spouses Bela and Marta Karoji took patronage over artistic gymnastics in socialist Romania. They were the ones who saw in a six-year-old fragile girl from the town of Onesti future star world size.



The heyday of Romanian gymnastics

In 1974, Bela Karoji was appointed head coach of the Romanian national team. By that time, he had prepared a powerful team of young gymnasts, the core of which was the most talented girl Nadia Comaneci. She was distinguished by phenomenal stability and the implementation of super-difficult combinations. Her first adult competition was the 1975 European Championship. On the platform in Skien, 13-year-old Nadia Comaneci won the victory on three shells and in the all-around, losing only in floor exercise.

Later Comaneci became a real sports symbol of Romania. On the world gymnastics arena, in fact, she was opposed by only one athlete - Nelly Kim from the USSR. It was with her, by the way, that the Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci shared numerous medals and awards.

The photo below shows the small Transylvanian city of Virgo. It is here that the main center for artistic and rhythmic gymnastics in Romania is located. He moved to this old town under another head coach - Adrian Goryak. The 1980s saw a real boom in artistic gymnastics in the country. Parents took their girls en masse to gymnastic schools so that they are "like Nadia." There were also new future stars among them.



The current state of Romanian gymnastics and its prospects

In the 2000s, three stars shone on the horizon of Romanian artistic gymnastics - Sandra Izbasa, Monica Rosu and Catalina Ponor. They should have been replaced by Larisa Yordake. But this athlete turned out to be too "traumatic". And, alas, she does not possess the necessary fighting character. Therefore, the current generation of Romanian gymnasts looks somewhat faded.

Nevertheless, the "forge of champions" in Virgo continues to work. 17-year-old Andrey Iridon, 16-year-old Denisa Golgota and other talents are on the way. Therefore, Romanian gymnastics definitely has a future.



Romanian gymnasts - Olympic champions

Athletes from Romania have been participating in the Olympic Games in artistic gymnastics since 1952. During all this time, they have won 24 gold medals. Below in the table you will find full list the names of the Romanian gymnasts who became the first in a particular discipline at the Olympic Games.

Nadia Comaneci

Nadia Comăneci (born 1961) is one of the most titled athletes in Romania. She became the first gymnast in the world to receive the highest score from the judges at international competitions- 10.0. Included in the list of "100 Greatest Romanians" at number 10.

Nadia left big sport in 1981. In the fall of 1989, shortly before the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime, she fled the country to the United States, then emigrated to Canada. In 1996, Comaneci married American gymnast Bart Conner. In 2006, the couple had a son, Dylan. Nadia Comaneci is a citizen of two states (USA and Romania). Today she runs the Norman Sports Academy of Gymnastics and is involved in charity work.

The main sports achivments: nine-time European champion, two-time world champion, five-time Olympic champion.

Ekaterina Sabo

Ecaterina Szabo (born 1967) is a Romanian gymnast of Hungarian descent. Like Nadia Comaneci, she is a pupil of the coach Karoja. In 2008, Ekaterina Szabo accused Marta and Bela Karoji of using physical violence against her and other athletes.

Major sporting achievements: two-time European champion, two-time world champion, four-time Olympic champion.

Catalina Ponor

Cătălina Ponor (born 1987) is a Romanian gymnast from the seaside town of Constanta. Has been doing gymnastics since the age of four. She was invited to the national team by coach Octavian Belu. The most successful and efficient athlete performed on the balance beam.



In December 2007, Catalina was forced to retire from the big sport due to a serious injury. But in 2011, she returned to active training and even helped her team win bronze medals at the 2012 Olympics in London. In 2017, the athlete announced her final retirement.

Major sporting achievements: eight-time European champion, three-time Olympic champion.

Octavian Belo

Talking about women's artistic gymnastics, one cannot, at least in passing, mention one brilliant Romanian coach - Octavian Belu. He is the current head coach of the Romanian women's national team.



In 2007, Belu was recognized as the most successful and efficient coach in the world. He has 279 medals, 16 of which are Olympic gold medals. Under the guidance of a coach, the Romanian women's team became world champion five times and twice - Olympic champion... Octavian Belu has trained a galaxy of powerful Romanian gymnasts. Among them are Sandra Izbasha, Monica Rosu, Catalina Ponor and Larisa Yordake.

Finally

Romanian gymnasts have remained among the world leaders for almost forty years. For several decades, this country sent excellently trained athletes to the world and European championships. However, 2016 was a disaster for the Romanian women's national artistic gymnastics team: Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, only one athlete managed to break through - Catalina Ponor. But fans from Romania do not despair, because a new replacement is already being prepared for the stars who have retired. We can only hope that the new generation of Romanian gymnasts will be no less talented than the previous ones.