It was July 18, 1976, the opening day of events at the Montreal Games, and the Soviet women’s gymnastics team was all the talk, winners of every team competition since 1952, featuring Olympic stars such as Olga Korbut and Ludmilla Tourischeva.
Early on, 4-foot-11 Comaneci stepped up to the uneven bars and put the crowd into shock with crisp, stunning moves. Even Comaneci looked confused by the 1.00 on the scoreboard, and it took the announcer to notify the crowd that those digits actually meant a perfect 10, and it was the first recorded by a gymnast at an Olympics. The crowd erupted.
Throughout the competition, Comaneci showed it was no fluke. She would record six more perfect scores en route to gold medals on the balance beam and uneven bars and a bronze medal in the floor exercise. She became the new Olympic all-round champion. The Romanian team also placed second in the team competition.
Comaneci, though, still sees small flaws when she watches.
“I never felt they were perfect,” says Comaneci, reasoning that the difference between her and the 9.95s in the competition may have just been a little “Nadia’s touch.” “They were very good, but I still could have been better.”

“I was so young,” Comaneci recalls. “I didn’t realize I was doing something no one had ever done, because I was doing the same routines I had always done, just in a bigger arena. People around me would say ‘that kid is so good,’ but I thought adults just told kids they were good at something and patted them a little bit to make them feel good about themselves. I didn’t know how good I was until I did what I did in Montreal.”