“People always accused me of not smiling like my rival Olga Korbut, but that was just my personality. When you're balancing on a nine-inch beam, you have to concentrate. But if you look back at the footage, I was always smiling and waving at the crowd after my performances.”

Romanian retired gymnast

Nadia Comaneci is a Romanian retired gymnast, best known for becoming the first gymnast to receive a perfect score of 10.0 at the Olympic Games. Her Olympic career made her a central figure in the sport and one of its most recognized athletes. At the 1976 Games, when she was 14, she earned the first Olympic 10.0 and added six more on the way to three gold medals. She later won two more gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Across her career, Comaneci won nine Olympic medals and four World Artistic Gymnastics Championship medals.