Nadia Comaneci

Comaneci continued to win medals at the European Championships in 1977 and 1979 and the World Championships in 1978. In 1979 she became the only woman to win three European all-around titles. Comaneci returned to the Olympics in 1980 in Moscow, U.S.S.R. The Americans boycotted the event as a political statement against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. However, Comaneci's biggest competition came from the Soviets. Unfortunately Comaneci's performance at the 1980 Olympics was not perfect. In fact, she fell off of the uneven bars during the team competition. "More than my dignity had been bruised in that fall, and as I gingerly made my way back to the bench, I was half aware of the sympathetic stares from some of my fellow competitors. At first I felt angry, and then strangely numb, until I sat down when I was furious with myself," Comaneci wrote in her autobiography Nadia.

To make matters worse, Comaneci was also not able to defend her all around champion title. Three women, including Comaneci, were in the running for the title when they all went to do their final apparatus. Comaneci gave a spectacular performance on the balance beam, but the judges only awarded her a score of 9.85. This meant that she placed second in the all around, behind Soviet gymnast Yelena Davydova. Coach Karolyi was furious and disputed the score, charging that the host team was influencing the results so that their gymnast became champion. The score remained unchanged and Comaneci had to settle for a silver all-around medal. Despite these difficulties, Comaneci also won gold medals for balance beam and floor exercise, and a team silver medal.

In 1981 Comaneci completed in the World University Games in Bucharest, Romania, where she won first place for the team competition, all around competition, vault, uneven bars, and balance beam. This was her last major competition and she officially retired from gymnastics in 1984. "I regret that from now on I will never know the excitement of competition," Nadia was quoted in the New York Times.