Nadia Comaneci Quotes
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I remember everything from 1976. I remember I was 14, and I remember my routines.
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What can you know about life at 14? I have learned a lot since, but you learn slowly. You get hit by many things and try to make sense of it.
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If I have a feeling of not trusting, I don't get too close.
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I think a lot of people don't actually know me. They think, 'She's like this,' or, 'She's like that.' They say I have no emotions - I do, but you couldn't see them then. I had to keep them inside.
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I thought I was going to retire at 20, and I was going to be a surgeon.
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In Montreal, I kept thinking, 'Pay attention: this is the Olympics! It only happens once every four years!'
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I know my life story sounds too extraordinary to be true.
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People think you have pressure when you are young. It's the other way round, actually.
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It's very hard to get to the top. It's hardest to stay at the top.
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At some particular time, when I was 14 years old, I've done something that people didn't expect.
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Scoring the first 10 in history was a big deal, but the fact that even an electronic scoreboard could not figure out how to put out a score, it made the story more historic.
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I never personally complained; everybody else complained for me.
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I hoped to win a medal and hoped it would be gold. I knew I was good but didn't know I would be the one to score something that had never been done before.
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Gymnastics is so huge in the Olympics. There are a lot of fans who want to see more.
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Ceausescu thought I had only a few medals, but I have a room full of them in Bucharest, between 150-200 in all. They needed suitcases to haul them out.
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Of course I used to smile and laugh in 1976, but not when I was competing. Please show me somebody who laughs when they are concentrating; I always smiled.
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At the end of the day, I just want to see good gymnastics!
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In the '80 Olympics... people expected me to win. I was good enough to win, and I made a mistake and ended up second, which is pretty good, too.
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When I look back, I am happy that my mum took me to the gymnastics club. I didn't join gymnastics to become a famous athlete or celebrity; it just happened - I did more than I expected, of course.
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I believe that you should gravitate to people who are doing productive and positive things with their lives.
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I think that when you are on a four-inch balance beam, you don't care about laughing or smiling or waving to the crowd because you're going to be down in a second.
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When I went into the Montreal Games, nobody expected much out of me.
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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.
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Two days after returning from Montreal, I was training again, and I went on to win two more golds at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.