Nadia Comăneci represented Romania in Olympic gymnastics. She competed for Romania at the 1976 Montreal and 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, becoming one of the most celebrated athletes in Romanian sporting history.
At Montreal in 1976, the 14-year-old Comăneci became the first gymnast to receive a perfect 10.0 in an Olympic gymnastics event. The scoreboard displayed 1.00 because it had not been designed to show a score of 10. She ultimately earned seven perfect scores at those Games and won gold in the individual all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam, along with additional medals.
Comăneci returned at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, where she won two more gold medals and added silver medals. Across her Olympic career, she won nine medals: five gold, three silver, and one bronze. Her later life and career are sometimes confused with those of her former coach Béla Károlyi, who eventually worked in the United States; Comăneci’s Olympic nationality and representation remained Romanian.