Nadia Comaneci at the world gymnastics championships in Glasgow’s Hydro Arena.
Reuters/Glasgow
When Nadia Comaneci takes her seat at Glasgow’s Hydro Arena, she will be able to sit back and follow the women’s team competition at the world gymnastics championships without the usual pent up tension she feels at the pit of her stomach.
All that tension went out flipping and somersaulting out of the window on the opening day of this year’s competition when, for the first time since 1966, her native Romania failed to make the cut for the eight-team final.
“I am sick to my stomach,” Comaneci told reporters after watching her compatriots implode with error after error during the qualifying competition. A country used to showcasing perfection in gymnastics ever since Comaneci landed the first 10.0 score during the 1976 Olympics were so off target, that their participation in next year’s Rio Games hang in the balance.
With only the top eight teams in Glasgow gaining automatic Olympic qualification, Romania now face an unexpected trip to Brazil in April where teams placed between ninth and 16th will compete in a test event to determine the final four Rio spots.
It has been a humbling outing in Glasgow for a country whose women won five straight team titles from 1994 to 2001 and medalled at every Olympics since 1976. Pre-competition injuries to Catalina Ponor and Anamaria Ocolisan had already provided major setbacks but when five-times European gold medallist Larisa Iordache botched her display on the beam, it completed a woeful day of errors for the Romanians.
“I feel so sad for what happened, because they started with Catalina Ponor’s injury and she’s not here. When Anamaria Ocolisan injured her ankle (in training), I felt a big panic among the team,” Comaneci said. “I feel like a mom to them and consoled them because there’s nothing you can do.”
However, Comaneci was optimistic that there was still time to put things right before next August’s Olympics. “There are some girls who are not here because they aren’t old enough, but they will be added to the team next year. I can’t think of any reason (for the problems) other than the tremendous amount of panic that happened (in the build up).
“One gymnast got hurt, then another one got hurt, and the next one is probably not quite ready to replace the other one.”
That was clear for all to see as so poor was their display, no Romanian made it into the apparatus finals—a competition that will even feature an unlikely finalist from India on the vault. So while Romania’s class of 2015 reflect on a doomed championships after finishing 13th, Comaneci will be left to appreciate the skills shown by the United States, Russia, hosts Britain, China, Italy, Japan, Canada and the Netherlands in final.
