#10 The girl who changed the face of gymnastics
On the goddess of Montreal and the perfect 10.
On July 18, 1976, at the Montreal Olympics, a 14-year-old Romanian girl called Nadia Comăneci, was going to make history and captivate the entire world as she was awarded the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics for her routine on the uneven bars. And if that wasn’t enough, she did it again. And again. And again. Six more times. Six more perfect tens, three gold medals, one silver and another bronze. A multiple Olympic, world and European champion, later on, Nadia would be known as “the goddess of Montreal” and Romania’s propaganda tool in the communist era, with the Securitate secret police recording any of her moves.
“Nadia and the Securitate,” written by the Romanian historian Stejărel Olaru and published earlier this year, depicts a psychological portrait of the legendary gymnast behind the glamour and success: a past full of beatings, humiliation and abuse, as a result of Olaru’s trawls through thousands of pages declassified Securitate reports.
Nadia was given the codename “Corina” by the Securitate in the 1970s and soon was part of a surveillance apparatus that included a network of informants such as doctors, gymnastics federation officials and the team’s choreographer and pianist. All were reporting “the attitude of terror and brutality” displayed especially by Bela Karolyi, Nadia’s first coach, but no one was taking action.
Fat cows. Pigs. Idiots.
This is how Karolyi is believed to have addressed the gymnasts, on top of slapping them or depriving them of food for three days. Some ended up with bulimia. Meanwhile, Karolyi would even consider eating chips or steak in front of the girls.
Despite Nadia not being beaten as often as her colleagues, Olaru writes that “she was nevertheless tormented, intimidated, humiliated.” Once she was scolded for putting on 300 grams of weight. Another time, ahead of a tournament, Nadia tried to run away and hide from Karolyi, alerting the whole Securitate. A young, starved, internationally acclaimed gymnast wandering the streets of Bucharest on the lookout for food. Nadia would eventually stop and buy a wedge of cheese from a shop.
Every time she was invited to a demonstration tournament, Nadia was supposed to earn hundreds or thousands of dollars but that money never reached her pocket, ending up in the state’s accounts. Olaru explains why a regime known for its severity tolerated Nadia’s occasional acts of insubordination:
“Other athletes had most likely been expelled from the team, but Nadia was an exception; Romania needed Nadia because Elena [Ceaușescu] wanted her medals.”
Publicly, Nadia was considered a national heroine, being awarded the “Heroine of Socialist Labour” distinction by Ceaușescu. Yet, after retiring from gymnastics in 1984, Nadia had become some kind of a prisoner, banned from travelling abroad, with the exception of a few socialist countries.
With the risk of being caught, possibly shot, Nadia crossed frozen fields and ponds, managing to escape to Hungary in 1989, one month before the revolution that overthrew Nicolae Ceaușescu and his dictatorship. From there she headed to Austria and then on to the United States, where she requested asylum. Nadia’s bold move bewildered the foreign media who described the regime as “unbearable even for the privileged.”
45 years later, Nadia refuses to play the victim card. She has always spoken kindly of her coach who made her the iconic gymnast she will always be remembered as.
This is the story of a brave and tenacious girl who never let herself be swallowed up by fame or succumb to the temptation of self-pity. This may as well be the price she had to pay in order to fulfil her ambitions. In 1996, Nadia Comăneci was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.
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Today is a special issue of The Culture Worm. 10 consecutive weeks of writing this newsletter. I thought there would be no better way to celebrate this little achievement than by writing about the girl who changed the face of gymnastics, the example of perfection and stamina: Nadia Comăneci. Hope you enjoyed it.
Now on to the weekly cultural recommendations…
Happy reading, happy learning,
Teodora x
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🥁 📚 The latest in the literary world
The winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize is “At Night All Blood is Black” by David Diop, who becomes the first French-Senegalese writer to win the prestigious award. 🏆 Prior to this win, Diop’s novel had already bagged other literary awards, including France's Prix Goncourt des Lycéens and the Swiss Prix Ahmadou Korouma, as well as the Strega European Prize in Italy.👏 👏 👏 So much praise, even on Goodreads (!), I must get my hands on a copy… 🤔 *checks out on Amazon* 🤫
A non-fiction collection titled “Burning Questions” with more than 50 essays from the Booker Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood will be published on March 1, 2022! The novelist will tackle “the most pertinent issues of the day […] from the rise of Donald Trump to the financial crash and the climate crisis.” 🤡 💰 🌎
For the second year in the UK, Amazon Literary Partnership has awarded 23 non-profit literary organisations whose mission is to champion emerging writers and diversity in storytelling. In addition to this, Amazon has surveyed 1,500 Britons on which books they would have liked to have written themselves. Here’s the top 25. Spoiler alert: “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E.L James is among the choices. 🤦♀️ *Yes, the bar is THIS low * 🙄
I wrote about John Le Carré’s posthumous novel in issue #8. Now, The Curtis Brown Creative writing school is launching an annual novel-writing scholarship in his honour. This will come on top of a rolling programme of scholarships, mentoring opportunities and intensive writing courses offered for free to under-represented writers. ✍️ 🙌
Lisey’s Story, Stephen King’s 2006 prize-winning, critically acclaimed novel and the one he described as his favourite, got adapted for the screen. It premieres today, June 4, on Apple TV+ and stars Julianne Moore as Lisey, a widow grieving the death of her famous husband, the bestselling author Scott Landon, played by Clive Owen. 🎬 📽️
🎧 📰 👀 My media diet this week
Whilst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has benefitted from a lot of exposure (and rightly so!), the ongoing war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region hasn’t had the same buzz. And of course, this ain’t fair. Here’s a great feature from National Geographic explaining how the political conflict escalated into a grave humanitarian crisis. Why read it? You’ll learn about the cost on ethnic Tigrayans, which, by the way, represent only 6% of Ethiopia’s population: two million people displaced, thousands killed (although the actual number is unknown since the Ethiopian government has shut down communications), mass rapes and destruction of food, water and health facilities, as well as aid obstruction. For those who want a fast-track, this three-minute explainer video from the Council on Foreign Relations is what you need to get the gist of the story. 🇪🇹 🙏
Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize winner from Pakistan, has been trending on Twitter for being on the British Vogue cover, the July issue. The 23-year-old opens up to Sirin Kale in an enjoyable interview about love, family and the world she left behind. Why read it? It’s easy to forget that Malala is yet another ordinary girl who plays Among Us in her room and orders a sweet chilli chicken wrap from McDonald’s. She just happens to have also sat at the table with presidents and prime ministers, addressed the UN Youth Assembly on her 16th birthday or launched her own foundation, Malala Fund. ✨
Off Assignment’s “Letter To A Stranger” series features Kat Lewis, a recipient of a Fulbright Creative Arts grant in South Korea. In this essay, Lewis explores how it is to live in Seoul as a black person. Why read it? Here’s a quote that made me wonder: “I hadn’t noticed before I lived in Korea, something that—in this moment—I realized I had seen on every cashier and usher’s face that day. In their eyes, I could see how they all viewed my mother and me, how they applied their own internalized perceptions of Black people to the two Black women they now saw before them. So much of my experience at home was rooted in negotiating the pressures and expectations of whiteness. There, amid the fading lights of the movie theater, I realized I wanted nothing more than to go back to Korea, back to the place where people’s staring was one of curiosity, not of assumption or disdain.”
📌 Random news in brief
Princess Diana’s iconic wedding dress goes on display for the first time in more than 25 years at Kensington Palace. You have until January 2022 to see the 25ft (7.6m) sequin-encrusted train, which filled the aisle of St Paul's Cathedral in July 1981! 👰 💐
Fishermen find ambergris worth $1.5 million inside sperm whale’s carcass. 🐋 🌊Wondering what’s ambergris? Whale vomit, to put it bluntly. It’s used in perfumes to make them last longer. 💡
A Swedish sports club came with the idea of exercising whilst listening to classical music. It’s called “philharmonic fitness” and they’ve recorded workout videos featuring the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. 🏋️ 💪
Before we say goodbye… 🥺
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Wow that was an eye opening bit of history I actually knew nothing about this gymsit . What an awful life to live behind all the scenes. Also big congratulations to you 10 issues now. I hope these bring you as much joy to make as they do for me to read. Good going Teodora!