The bright orange suit Nadia Comaneci wore Thursday matched the colour of the Olympic torch outside the Canadian Olympic House in downtown Montreal, while a gold necklace in the shape of the Olympic rings hinted at the reason for her return.<\/p>\n
Fifty years after becoming the first gymnast to earn a perfect 10 at an Olympic Games, the Romanian legend returned to the city where, at 14, she delivered the iconic performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always emotional to be back here in Montreal,\u201d said the 64-year-old Comaneci.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to celebrate 50 years is a long time. We live in a world that has the tendency to forget moments very fast, and to be here to celebrate this amazing 50 years since \u201976 is\u2026 a once-in-a-lifetime event.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Comaneci, Montreal has become inseparable from the achievement that made her a household name around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gymnastics, Romania and Montreal,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is my life. This is what happened in \u201976.\u201d<\/p>\n
The retired gymnast won five medals in Montreal \u2014 three gold, one silver and one bronze \u2014 but it was her uneven bars routine on July 18, 1976, that cemented her status as an Olympic legend.<\/p>\n
She was the youngest gymnast ever to win gold, a record that appears likely to stand because there has since been a rule change barring athletes from competing before the year in which they turn 16.<\/p>\n
When she completed the routine, the scoreboard flashed \u201c1.00\u201d instead of 10.00, leaving athletes and spectators momentarily confused. Comaneci said she assumed the scoreboard had malfunctioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one didn\u2019t make sense at all,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cI thought there was something wrong because one is not a very good score.\u201d<\/p>\n
The explanation came later. Olympic organizers had instructed the Swiss company that built the scoreboard to display scores only up to 9.99 because no one believed a perfect 10 was possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not know that I made history because nobody told me anything,\u201d Comaneci said.<\/p>\n
She hardly had time to dwell on the confusion before moving to her next event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe music started, and we had to march to the balance beam, so I didn\u2019t have time to think about it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the end of the Games, Comaneci had earned seven perfect 10s, forever changing expectations in gymnastics. She said the achievement carries a different meaning today than it did when she was a teenager.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realize when I think about it, I can\u2019t believe a 14-year-old decided to do something 50 years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m impressed as an adult right now about the courage that that 14-year-old had.\u201d<\/p>\n
She has also come to appreciate the broader impact her success had on women in sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was young, there were not too many sports for women,\u201d she said. \u201cI always got this comment: \u2018Thank you for breaking the ice for women.\u2019 I didn\u2019t know exactly what that meant. Now I\u2019m like, \u2018OK, now I understand.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo,\u201d she said with a smile, \u201cI thank the 14-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canadian Olympic Committee president Tricia Smith, who competed in rowing at the 1976 Games, said Montreal marked an important turning point not only for Canadian sport, but also for women athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely played a role in the building block of how we\u2019ve done in Canada in sport,\u201d Smith said, pointing to the country\u2019s steady rise in Olympic success over the decades that followed.<\/p>\n
During the Montreal Games, Smith said women accounted for only about 20 per cent of athletes, and 1976 was the first Olympics to include women\u2019s rowing, nearly 80 years after the modern Olympic movement began.<\/p>\n
Even then, women raced only half the distance as men because of concerns that longer races could affect their ability to have children, Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just a lot more education, a lot more awareness,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Comaneci will take part in public celebrations outside Montreal\u2019s Olympic Stadium on Aug.1, commemorating the Games that made history and forever linked her name with the city.<\/p>\n
She said one of the most meaningful parts of this week\u2019s celebrations will be meeting women whose parents named them Nadia after watching her compete in Montreal.<\/p>\n
Half a century later, she said, she is still amazed by how widely her story and her name are remembered. Recalling a recent conversation with a young Montreal driver, she said he immediately recognized her as \u201cthe 14-year-old.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bright orange suit Nadia Comaneci wore Thursday matched the colour of the Olympic torch outside the Canadian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-836680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}