More from The Q&A: Nadia Comaneci
The Q&A has featured lots of great athletes, but never before has it had a three-time Olympic gold medalist.
Until this week.
Former gymnastics great turned Norman resident Nadia Comaneci is hosting an international meet this weekend in Oklahoma City. She and husband, Bart Conner, have expanded the event this year, adding a health fair open to the public. They have plans to continue to grow the weekend in coming years.
Then again, there’s no much that this gold-medal couple doesn’t do on a grand scale.
Here’s more from The Q&A with Comaneci.
Jenni Carlson: As a former Olympic gold medalist, what is it like watching other athletes competing and winning in the Winter Olympics up in Vancouver?
Nadia Comaneci: You just think about all the years that you spent to get to that moment, all the hard work. That moment … for some people, it takes a minute and a half to perform what they trained to do for years and years. There’s no rewinding. It’s not like, “Oh, I want to try this again because I messed it up.” They go there and this is the moment. You have to cull your best performance that you had in training and try to deliver it there with so many people watching it. Yeah, I remember and you know that everybody’s watching. In some cases, that athlete is expected to win.
See, when I went to the Olympics in ’76, the gymnastics people knew that I was good, but everybody else, after I won everybody was like, “Where’s she coming from? Who is she? What is Romania?” I made the cover of Sports Illustrated, Newsweek and Time all in one week, and I didn’t even know what that meant. (Laughs.)
JC: Maybe that was a good thing. It might’ve freaked you out had you known.
NC: I know. I didn’t understand all of those things because I was 14. I understood them later. When you’re a child, you’re like, “Is that a big deal?” Uh, yeah, that is a big deal.
JC: Were those years that followed the ’76 Games more difficult for you because of that?
NC: In the ’80 Olympics … people expected me to win. I was good enough to win, and I made a mistake and ended up second, which is pretty good, too. When you’re growing up, you realize you’ve got a lot of heavy things on your shoulders. I didn’t have anything on my shoulders when I was 14. After that, I was like, “Wow, what would’ve happened if I would’ve made a mistake?” (Laughs.) There would be no 10 and none of those things.
JC: Now, you did a lot of amazingly difficult and dangerous skills as a gymnast. I’m wondering — any chance you would’ve ever done any of the Winter Olympic sports like ice skating or snowboarding or downhill skiing?
NC: I think it would’ve been fun. A lot of people that do tricks … they were gymnasts before. It is harder because there’s no cushioned mats when you hit the snow. It’s daring, and kids like to do daring stuff. They don’t like to do safe stuff. But you have to look at the safest way to do crazy stuff. (Laughs.) If you learn them the proper way, all ends up good.
JC: I know especially ice skaters, a lot of them have gymnastics backgrounds. Do you ice skate at all?
NC: Yeah, but I’m really bad.
JC: So, no triple toe loops in your future?
NC: Yeah, I can do many of those sitting on the ground. (Laughs.)
JC: I have to ask about your 4-year-old, Dylan. Between you and Bart and your still-strong roots in gymnastics, is Dylan destined to be a gymnast?
NC: He comes to the gym because he likes to jump on the trampoline. He takes one class a week for 45 minutes. I think it’s great for kids. They don’t do gymnastics; they roll on the mats, they learn how to sit in line and wait. Kids who do these kinds of things present themselves much better in kindergarten in school.
JC: There’s some discipline built in already.
NC: There is. They don’t want to do that; they want to go wherever they want to go. But they have to learn to stay in line.
JC: He’s learning patience, but is he taking his jumping and rolling home to all your furniture?
NC: (Laughs.) No, he’s not allowed to do much in the house because we have the gym. I’ll say, “Dylan, you’ve got to go the gym.” It’s a big playground for him, so we’re lucky that we have that.
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