Video: Great Olympic Moments: Nadia Comaneci reaches her zenith at Montreal 1976 She emerged from the Games having achieved the perfection of a 10 out of 10 score and, just as remarkably, having made an even greater impact than Olga Korbut, the Soviet gymnast who had wowed audiences four years earlier in Munich. Romania, like the Soviet Union, regarded sport, particularly Olympic sport, as a propaganda tool. Like Korbut, Comaneci suffered the uncompromising treatment that the Communist nations imposed on their pre-pubescent female gymnasts while preparing them for Olympic glory. She won the all-around contest and contributed to the team gold medal. Aged 13 she was selected for the 1975 European championships in Skien, Norway. Her only disappointment was winning only a silver medal in the floor exercises. Comaneci's deadpan look - very different from Korbut's ever-ready smile - gave the impression of a precocious diva impervious to attacks of nerves. The impression was in fact a reality. Neither the pressure nor the dangerous and complex routines she performed undermined her confidence. Completely assured, her performance on the uneven bars in the team competition gained her the first perfect 10 by a female in Olympic history. The scoreboard even had difficulty believing it. Rather than display 10.0 it showed 1.00. Next Comaneci's beam exercise in the team event earned her another perfect mark and five more 10s followed as she won the all-around, beam and bars gold medals. In 1989 Comaneci defected with a group of other young Romanians, travelling overland across Europe before flying to the United States. In 2001 she became a naturalised citizen of the US where she does charity work and also appears on the celebrity circuit, including taking part in game shows and other TV entertainment programmes.