Nadia+Comaneci

  ​ ** __Nadia Comaneci__ ** **BACKGROUND** Nadia Comăneci was born in Onesti, Romania in 1961 as the daughter of Gheorghe and Ştefania-Alexandrina. Her pregnant mother was watching a Russian movie in which the heroine's name was Nadya, meaning 'hope' in Russian. She decided that her daughter would be named Nadia too.

She was a Romanian gymnast and was the first person to be awarded a perfect score, 10 out of 10, in history. At the age of 14 (1976), she achieved her first full mark during the team portion of the competition. Because this was the first full mark in modern Olympic history, the scoreboards were not even equipped to display 10.0 so her score was displayed as 1.00. Over the course of the Olympic, she earned 6 additional perfect scores as well as a bronze medal for floor exercise. In the two Olympics (1976 and 1980), she earned a total of 9 medals.
 * ACHIEVEMENTS **

Nadia Comăneci also has the world record as the youngest Olympic gymnast but this record can not be legally broken as gymnasts have to be over the age of 16 nowadays.

Nadia Comaneci was not inspired by gymnastics. She did not realise that she had the talents. Nadia started learning gymnastics at the age of six with a local group called "Flame" with her coaches Duncan and Munteanu. She has described this as one of the big turning points in here life. That year, she was invited to join Bela Karolyi's gymnastic class try outs by Bela who saw Nadia and her friend doing cartwheels on the school field. By the age of seven, she started taking Bela's lesson and since then, he has been Nadia Comaneci's coach. When she was eight, she came 13th in the National Romanian Championships. But a year later, she became the youngest winner of the National Championships.
 * [[image:http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/sports/year_in_sports/photos/07.21.jpg width="235" height="281" align="left"]]WHAT INSPIRED HER? **

In 1991, she left Romania and settled in North America where she married an Olympic gymnastic medallist, Bart Conner, in 1996. After they retired, they became involved in a lot of charity work and international organisations. In 1999, she became the first athlete to speak at the United Nations to launch the 2000 (year) International Year of Volunteers. Now she is the Vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the International Special Olympics as well as the Vice-president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

One of Nadia Comaneci's famous quotes was “I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.” She thinks that it is hard work that has made her goal easier to reach. "This is my secret. This is why I win". I think that Nadia Comaneci has always had confidence and determination to try and reach her goal. Even though her 'success' was only necessary to be achieved when she was young, she still reached her goal in the short period of her life.

"I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet." "Of course, I grew up in Communist Romania, but I am happy to say that now our country is democratic, and prospering, since the revolution in 1989." "I have had a few turning points, the first day I entered a gymnastics school at age 6." "Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win." "I worked hard in gymnastics since the time I was six years old until I retired at 23 years of age." "Of course, most people remember that I received the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics competition."
 * Here are some quotes by Nadia Comaneci: **

-What is success? ** I think that success is reaching or trying your best to reach a goal. Even though you may have not reached the goal itself, you have made the effort and have made an achievement. I think that determination, commitment, a goal, ability to let go, focus and action is needed for success. the dictionary definition of success is 'achievement of something planned or attempted' and 'something that turns out the way it is planned'. my definition of success is reaching or trying my best to reach a goal. Being able to do something that you want to do or should do may be hard when you do not have any support around you so I think that having friends and family members to support you is also a part of success. Helping them out when they need help and making them smile when they need to cheer up may also count as a part of success. No matter how small the goal may be, you still have achieved something in life that has made a positive difference. I think they fall short of their potential because they do not have a specific goal. The goal might be to general and therefore, they do not know what the actual "goal" is. Even they might have a set goal; it might not be something that they really want to achieve and may not give their best to achieve it. Others are just too lazy and can not be bothered to spend their time in achieving their full potential. I think that we should achieve our full potential because it makes us more likely to succeed. Some of the goals that you may have may only be possible for you to reach when you are young. If you do not achieve your full potential when you can, you may regret it later on during your lifetime when you are older. **-What did you enjoy/learn/discover during Ms Rogge's Workshop in Wednesday, 28th October?** I learned that `success` is more than just reaching a goal. I realised that it is important to have a specific goal before you even try to reach it. Or else it would be very hard to know what you really want to do. Secondly I learned that it is important to have the ability to let go of the mistakes that you have made in the pass because this is what drags you back from reaching success.
 * PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
 * -What personal qualities are needed for success?**
 * -Find a dictionary definition of success **
 * -Form your own definition of success **
 * -Why do people fall short of achieving their potential? **
 * -Why should we achieve our full potential? **

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 * Wikipedia-Nadia Comaneci- 7th October **
 * Olympic.org- 21st October**
 * Pictures from 7th October:**
 * Brainy Quotes-Nadia Comaneci Quotes-26th October**
 * The My Hero Project-Sports: Nadia Comaneci-18th November**