Inspirational Olympic Stories # 4 - The Perfect Ten!

When you score 99/100 in a shooting range, that is par excellence, but scoring 100/100 is flawless. When you defeat the opponent 6-2 6-2 6-1 in a tennis match, that is par excellence, but doing a 6-0 6-0 6-0 is flawless. So, as you might imagine, the flawlessness does not happen daily in any sport. Being flawless in any sport is THAT difficult. You can be better than the rest, but you can never be devoid of errors.

So, what if I told you that a 14 year old girl went on to achieve the dreaded dream of a ‘perfect ten’? The buck doesn’t stop here. The same girl went on to do it six more times. That was how flawless she was.

Yes, this is Nadia Comaneci’s story.

# 4 – Nadia Comaneci’s perfect 10

The International Olympic Committee informed Omega, the scorekeepers of the 1976 games to use a three digit scorecard for Gymnastics. Daniel Baumat, the then director of Omega says “I was told that a perfect 10 was not possible”. As a result, after Nadia Comaneci proved them and the whole world wrong, her score read 1.00, actually a perfect 10.00.

Born in Romania in 1961, Comaneci was naturally interested in Gymnastics like most girls in Europe. And like most others, she starting competing at a very young age. Her first professional performance came at an age of 9.

Later, she was qualified to participate in senior European Championships. In her very first competition at that stage, she won gold in the Best-All around category. She went on to win piles of medals in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Building up to the 1976 Olympic Games, she managed a grand repertoire of 19 perfect ten scores. She could easily excel in the balance beams, bars as well as on the floor.

Despite all these awards and accolades, her ‘defining moment’ came at the 1976 Olympic Games where she did what no other Olympic athlete has ever done before – score a perfect 10!

Comaneci with her perfect routine

Her first event was the Uneven Bars, she performed her routine amid pin drop silence in the hall. Nobody could believe what they were seeing and after an inch perfect landing, the whispers began, “Will she get it?” Of course, she did. The first time in the history of modern Olympics, an athlete was awarded a perfect 10.00. The scorecard read 1.00, the crowd were confused but they understood later and gave Comaneci a grand applause.

The scoreboard reads 1.00

Over the course of the games, Comaneci went on to produce perfect 10′s four times on the Uneven Bars and thrice on the beam, winning three gold medals for the bars, beam and all-around exercise, a silver for the team event and a bronze on the floor. She was awarded with various medals and honors for her achievement at the 1976 Montreal Games.

Comaneci would never again reach the form that she displayed in Montreal. Four years later, she participated in the Russian Olympic Games, winning two golds and missed the All-Around category by an inch. Despite these commendable efforts, Comaneci decided to call it quits in 1981 when she retired from professional gymnastics.

When asked about her achievement, Nadia comments

“People ask me what’s the definition of perfection, I said it’s none, there is no definition of perfection. At some particular time when I was 14 years old, I’ve done something that people didn’t expect,” she said.

“It’s a ladder that you climb in life, and I got there first.”

36 years have passed since that magnificent night at Montreal. Now, the minimum age requirement for Olympic participants is 16 and according to the 2008 rule changes in Gymnastics, nobody can receive a perfect 10 anymore. Of all the records that remain untouchable, Comaneci’s record will now ‘officially’ remain untouchable!

Here is a video of Comaneci’s first ever perfect 10

The list of other entries that made it to our list are:

# 1 – Derek Redmond and the Spirit of Olympics

# 2 – The Black Power Salute

#3 – Bolt strikes Beijing