Legendary Gymnast Nadia Comaneci

The legendary Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci, whose feat with her perfect 10 at the Montreal Olympic Games turned 40 years old, said that she still vividly remembers the memory of that feat, which made her the first gymnast to perform a perfect routine.

Comaneci, who won a total of nine Olympic medals throughout her career, five of them gold, at the 1976 Montreal and 1980 Moscow Games, remembers four decades later moments that remain intact in her memory.

"I can vividly feel the moment when I was walking through the arena and the noise there was," Comaneci recalls.

"I can feel all of that. I remember who was performing on the floor routine while I was on the bars. Today, I remember all of those moments," she says.

Comaneci now runs a gymnastics school in Oklahoma (United States) with her husband, coach and American champion Bart Conner, and she still feels enthusiastic about the sport that brought her worldwide fame.

"I practice when nobody is at the gym," she confessed to Laureus.com as a member of the Laureus Foundation.

The gymnastics star believes that the United States will be the team to beat in the Rio Games. "Currently, in women's gymnastics, the United States is number one. They probably have around 4 million children practicing gymnastics every year," she says.

AFP