Nadia Comaneci - Letters to a Young Gymnast
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If there were such a thing as an elder stateswoman in womens gymnastics today, Nadia Comaneci would win that title as readily as she once won gold medals. Olga Korbut came before her, and many other medalists would follow, but none has ever been as dominant in winning the hearts of millions around the world. With grit and determination, Nadia Comaneci ushered in a new era for womens sports, one where young girls could vault into the arena of superstardom. Even today, almost thirty years after her greatest triumphs, you need only mention the name Nadia and gymnastics fans know instantly whom you are talking about.In Letters to a Young Gymnast, Nadia shows what it takes to achieve athletic perfection and become the best. With inspiring and dramatic stories from her own experience, she tells us how the young girl that Bela Karolyi discovered in a Romanian elementary school found the inner strength to become a world-class athlete at such a young age. This collection of Nadias memories, anecdotes, and advice grants unique insights into the mind of a top competitor. From how to live after youve realized your dream, to the necessity of a spirit forged with mettle, Nadias thoughts on athleticism and sacrifice are eye-opening and surprisingly challenging.
Nadia Comaneci: author's other books
Who wrote Letters to a Young Gymnast? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.
Nadia Comaneci
Nadia Edmond
Nadia Shapiro
Nadia Higgins
Jon M. Fishman
Nadia Bolz-Weber
Nadia Cohen
Nadia Murad
Nadia Marzouki
Nadia Gould
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Table of Contents
Praise forLetters to a Young Gymnast:
A story told simply and elegantly of a young gymnasts progress to Olympic triumph, how it happened, and what happened after.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Comaneci comes across as a very thoughtful, determined person who combined her extraordinary skills with lots of work.
Library Journal
Besides dispensing advice through letters... the former Olympian shares the ups and downs of her life as an athlete.... She makes it clear that what happened to her as a child and teenager led inevitably to the next period of her life, when she had to find a life outside gymnastics.
The Vancouver Sun
[A] riveting autobiography.
School Library Journal
Comaneci, as few will forget, scored seven perfect 10s at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. In [Letters to a Young Gymnast, she] reveals how a Romanian school girl went from climbing trees to the medal podium and the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated.
Ottowa Citizen
This book is dedicated to my best friend and husband Bart Conner. We have come a long way since our first kiss in 1976 and I cannot imagine anyone else to make this journey with or whom I am more proud to call my partner.
I want to thank my family for all of their love and support and Paul Ziert for his kindness and friendship.
To the people of Romania I say that I am proud to be one of you and to call our country my home.
My thanks also to Nancy Richardson Fischer for the talent, enthusiasm, and energy she brought to the writing of this book.
Nadia
Introduction
Dear Nadia,
Tell me everything...
Dear Friend,
I dont know everything. You have asked me to begin a correspondence in the hope of learning about my life. I am reticent. Ive never written about myself before because there is not enough time in the world to spend it looking back.
You believe that there are answers in my past to the questions of dedication, strength, courage, pressure, goals, dreams, triumphs, challenges, and love. I look at those words and they slide from the page into chapters that I rarely visit. But you tempt me to recall forgotten stories and relive moments of happiness and hell.
I will try to answer your letters with the hope that my experiences may help you in some small way. Remember that they are mine and you must build your own story with both care and wild abandon.
Nadia Comaneci
The Dream
There are two gymnastic moves on the uneven bars named after me. The first is called the Comaneci Salto. Salto is a general term for a somersault. To perform a Comaneci Salto, the gymnast begins in a support position on the high bar. She casts away from the bar and performs a straddled front somersault and regrasps the same bar.
Gymnastics skills are rated from the easiest move to the most difficult. An A move is the easiest, then there are B, C, D, E, and Super E moves. The Super E is the most difficult, and usually, only a few gymnasts in the world can perform one. The Comaneci Salto is rated an E move. Even now, many years after the 1976 Olympics, very few gymnasts attempt the Comaneci Salto because it is so difficult.
I have a recurring dream. In it, there are two young girls with long brown hair floating over my bed. They wear gauzy, white nightgowns that fall loosely around pale legs and delicately pointed bare feet. I lie on my back beneath the covers watching them hover. They are lovely creatures, and I am not afraid; I am mesmerized, and I long to join them because they are cloaked by soft light, graceful and pure. Their lips, pale rosebuds, curve into smiles; their brown eyes are wise; their delicate fingers cup together, holding a hidden promise.
And then the dream changes. The girls hover closer, and their mouths open into cavernous, yawning black holes. Suddenly, all I can see is darkness. All I can hear is the roar of a vast ocean. I am cold; I am afraid; I am alone. I know that the blackness will swallow me whole, but my bones are leaden and I cannot move from my bed. I try to call out for help, but the scream catches in my throat. The terror tastes like salt and blood.
And then the dream shifts. I see tiny bursts of color flutter out of the darkness. The girls drift overhead; I am still shrouded by the void, but sapphire, ruby, and amber-colored butterflies with transparent wings dart at the edge of vision... first one, then two, then many more. They look like stained glassdelicate, fragile, and breathtaking. The black begins to recede.
I peer into the girls cupped hands. They are empty, and yet, they hold everything... promises, opportunities, desperation, love, angry words, delight, Romania, deception, rag dolls, fairy dust, clarity, applause, my grandmothers smile, tears, fear, red ribbons, barbed wire, practices, curses, surprises, my mothers touch, elation, America, music, the scent of vanilla, refusal, a first kiss, dances, whispers, apple trees, my brothers laugh, the scrape of chalk against my palms, airplanes, sunsets, disappointment, skin and wind and waves, rivals, survival, upheaval, broken words, magic, the feel of my fathers hugs, chocolate, passports, fishing trips, funerals, birthdays, proposals.
Sometimes in my dream, fear paralyzes me, and I cannot reach for the girls hands. The darkness grows again, and I am swallowed and wake gasping for air, my hair drenched with sweat, my heart skipping and racing and grasping. I feel lost then and lonely in my failure. I feel like a child, a teenager, a young woman who never had the opportunity to control her destiny and learned nothing from the years of frustration, confusion, and desolation. I see the ghostlike girls fade from my vision and their almond-shaped eyes fill with regret.
Sometimes, though, I take the girls hands and gently open them; I let life slide through their fingers because there are moments when I have the courage to risk letting go of everything even though I understand the danger of doing so. Then my bedroom fills with butterflies and bursts of electric color, and the darkness recedes. I am wrapped in the knowledge that I cannot always choose dreams but that I can be lost and found, afraid yet brave, and make each moment my own.
Dear friend, in your letter you asked about my dreams, childhood, and early life as a gymnast. Perhaps you expected short and simple answers. Maybe you wanted to hear about my first perfect score of 10, gold medals, defection... I promise all that will come. But my life, like your own, is much more complex than a simple list of failures and accomplishments, and I will not cheat you of your answers despite some discomfort on my part in the telling.
I have come to realize that these letters are not only for you. There is a catharsis that comes from recalling the memories I had carefully packed away in the attic of my mind so that I could go on with my life unburdened by the remembering. You have asked me to shine a light into that dusty place, and I am finally ready to do so. Bear with me. Write me again, and take my hand when I falter because I cannot make this journey alone. I do not know you, but you will know me.
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