Nadia Comaneci

The Karolyis invited Comaneci to train with them. She attended gymnastics lessons two to three hours a day. From the beginning Comaneci showed that she was fearless and willing to try new and difficult moves. She also exhibited a good work ethic and practiced her routines on her own initiative. In 1969 Comaneci entered her first major competition, the Romanian National Junior Championships. She placed thirteenth that year. However, she returned the following year to win the Junior Championships, which was the first of many victories for Comaneci.

Comaneci held her Junior Championship title for the next few years. By the time she was 12 years old she moved into a state-run gymnastics training school where she trained with Karolyi for eight hours a day, six days a week. Comaneci continued to improve her technique, adding increasingly difficult moves to her routines, and she continued to be successful at championships. In 1976 Comaneci won first place for the all around competition, as well as for vault, uneven bars, and balance beam at both the Romanian Championships and the European Championships held in Norway. At the European Championships she upset the two-time defending champion, Lyudmila Turischeva, who was expecting another victory.

Comaneci took the world gymnastics scene by storm with her impeccable technique and her daring moves. However, her stoic style was often compared with the bubbly personality of Russian champion Olga Korbut, who won the hearts of the audience with her smiles and her tears. In contrast, Comaneci rarely smiled and was often perceived as cold or sad. Comaneci explained in her autobiography Nadia that "a gymnast must always be controlled, during training and, even more importantly, during a performance. The sport demands total concentration, and a gymnast gets used to the idea that any extraneous expression or thought is a waste of energy."