ShivamHistory In The Making
Well, when Nadia was asked years later about the feeling after getting the perfect 10, this is what she said, “I didn’t know I was making history when I got the 10.” Apparently, she didn’t like to watch the scoreboard after giving her performance and believed in feeling it within herself.
Making headlines
Life after Olympics had completely changed for Nadia. She was a star who had made both her parents and country proud. She received numerous awards and titles. BBC named her Overseas Sports Personality of the Year and the Associated Press as the Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year in the year 1976. When Nadia returned to Romania, her family were given a new car and the government gave them a one month vacation.
A New Hero
Nadia was completely amazed and at the same time a little perplexed on seeing a large number of fans waiting to catch a glimpse of her after she disembarked from the plane. She even went back inside the plane to sink in the feeling of seeing approximately 10,000 people waiting and cheering for her with posters and banners of her name in their hands.
Separations
But, for Nadia, everything wasn’t so rosy as far as her personal life was concerned. Firstly, not many days after Montreal Olympics ended, her parents got separated which left Nadia distraught. Secondly, The officials from Romanian Sports made the decision to change her coach from Bela Károlyi, with whom she had been training from a very small age to some other person. It seemed that her life was in troubled waters.
Drinking bleach
It seemed that for the 15-year-old, superstar Nadia the things had turned too worse to handle. It is for the same reason that she even tried to commit suicide in the year 1976 by drinking bleach. After spendint two days in the hospital, when asked about the incident she said, “glad because I didn’t have to go to the gym.” The Romanian sports official made the decision of assigning the task of coaching Nadia to Bela Károlyi one again.
Holding It All Inside
Nadia was someone who kept her emotions to herself. Even commentators, fellow gymnasts and her coach said,“ she kept everything inside.” Every time Nadia would say “Nobody knows what was inside… I’m human” in her defense. But, the reality was that the pressure of keeping up with the high expectations had started to take their toll on her.