Nadia Comăneci

At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, 14-year-old Nadia Comăneci received the first perfect 10 awarded in Olympic gymnastics, on the uneven bars on 18 July; the scoreboard, built without room for a 10.00, displayed 1.00. She scored seven perfect 10s at the Games and won the individual all-around, uneven bars and balance beam titles, plus team silver and floor bronze. She appeared on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Sports Illustrated that August.

At the 1980 Moscow Olympics she won the balance beam, defending her 1976 title, and shared the floor exercise gold, and took silver in the team event and, level with Maxi Gnauck, in the all-around. Across 1976 and 1980 she won nine Olympic medals, five of them gold.

At her first senior European Championships in 1975 she won four gold medals, and in 1978 she won the World Championships balance-beam title, which Olympedia notes was her only individual world title.

In an April 1973 interview, 12-year-old Comăneci was asked whether she had expected to win both Bucharest competitions and answered 'Yes'; asked whether she could beat the national champion, she said 'Yes. If not this year, then the next one for sure.' The journalist compared her self-confidence to Cassius Clay's. The piece comes from the state-controlled Romanian press of the time.

Stating, at twelve, that she expected to beat the country's best is consistent with strong competitiveness; the source is promotional state press, so it is one signal rather than a pattern. Competitiveness

At the 1980 Moscow Olympics she lost the all-around gold by 0.075 after a 28-minute scoring dispute led by Romania's head judge, then fell on vault in the apparatus finals. Over the rest of the competition she won the balance-beam final and tied for the floor gold, according to the Christian Science Monitor and Olympedia.

Winning two finals within days of a disputed loss and a fall is consistent with persistence; it is one documented episode, not a lifelong pattern. Persistence

On 30 March 1981 the Romanian women's team's coaches Béla and Márta Károlyi and choreographer Géza Pozsár left the team in New York at the end of a US tour and asked for asylum. The Christian Science Monitor reported they cited the federation's interference with their training methods, including those used for Comăneci. Olympedia records that she then won the 1981 World Student Games in Bucharest and retired from competition; other sources place her retirement in 1984.