Romanian Gymnast Nadia Comăneci in 1976

The first Olympics I watched to any extent were the 1976 games of the Montreal Summer Olympics. The heroine of those games was the 14-year-old Nadia Comăneci of Romania. She made Olympics history by being the first gymnast to score a perfect 10—and not once, but seven times. That netted her three gold metals, a silver, and a bronze, which she is seen wearing in the above photo.

Nadia started the whole gymnastics mania that has grown up around the Summer Olympics, and that continued with Svetlana Boginskaya, nicknamed “The White Swan of Belarus” in 1988 and 1992, and with Simone Biles today.

What ever happened to Nadia? Actually, she was in the opening day ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympiad. Today, she is an American citizen, having hightailed it out of Romania before the fall of the Ceauşescus in 1989.

Today she is 62 years old, being some 48 years removed from the svelte little girl who enchanted all of us way back when.