Nadia Comaneci was born on 12th November, 1961, in Onesti, Romania. As a youngster, she loved to run around and she had dreamt of becoming a gymnast. At the age of 6, she was spotted at the playground by the presently famous coach, Bela Karolyi. Karolyi took her to his gymnastics' classes with her parents' permission and trained her. As a prospective National gymnast for Romania, Nadia was given everthing she needed to excel. Coaching, travelling, choreography, entry fees etc were paid by the Romanian government.

In 1969, when she took part in her 1st National competition which was the Romanian National Junior Championships, she was placed 13th in position. The following year, she won the event, her 1st of 5 consecutive junior championships.

In 1975, she was already well-known in the world for having the ability to try moves that no one had ever attempted before in a competition. At the European championships, she won several gold medals for the all-around, vaulting, uneven parallel bars and the balance beam. Furthermore, she also got a silver medal for the floor exercise. Her stunning performance beat a host of experienced gymnasts, including Ludmilla Turishcheva of Soviet Union.

In 1976, at the American Cup in New York's Madison Square Garden, the 14-year-old scored several perfect 10 scores and won the cup. When she received her trophy, she was urged to kiss the men's gymnastics' winner, Bart Conner, for publicity photos. Little did they know that their paths would cross again and eventually lead to marriage. However, her most memorable victories occurred in Montreal during the Olympic games in the same year. On 19th July, Nadia set a historical record of getting a perfect 10. She performed in front of a crowd of 16,000 people with so much confidence and pride ! She began her routine on the uneven bars and for 90 seconds, she whirled and whirled in a gymnastic never-never land. She was awarded a perfect 10 on the scoreboard -- the 1st in Olympic history. Amazingly, she continued to score 6 more perfect 10s ! It fascinated the whole world and they wanted to know more about her.

During all the interviews and news conferences, the girl was always seen carrying the Eskimo doll given by her coach. Fans were happy to hear that she was a happy, young girl who loved to play with dolls and restricted her seriousness to her trainings and performances. She also made a confession that it was her greatest wish was to go back to her home to Bucharest.

In 1980, she once again earned a gold medal in the balance beam, a silver in the floor exercise and a bronze in the overall. Her Romanian team also won the silver medal.

In 1981(when she was 19), she announced her retirement from competitions and became a coach instead.

Behind all these, there lies plenty of rumours about her. Her life was far from perfect. It was rumoured that she tried to keep her weight down and that eventually led to anorexia and bulimia. It was also said that she was forced to be a frequent companion of the son of Nicolae Ceausescu, the Romanian tyrant. Although she denied having any relationships with the Ceausescu's son, it was found that when the tyrant's dictatorship ended in 1989, she crawled on her hands and knees through the mud to Hungary first, then to Austria and finally fled to America.

She worked as a model for an underwear advertisement and sold her life story on a huge bill board in Times Square. Eventually, she settled down in States and got married to Bart Connor( Mentioned earlier). It finally turned out to be a perfect ending...

...just as perfect as this jump.