ShivamFree at last
It was her friend Alexandru Stefuwho helped her after Nadia told him that it seemed to her that she felt like a captive under Panait. Stefu cleverly managed to set up a meeting with Nadia and Panait, where Nadia admitted that Panait was not treating her well. The very next day, Nadia was free from the grip of Panait as he fled the country with $150,000 cash he had stolen from Nadia and her car.
Moving around
It was a strange turn of events for Nadia after that. After accepting Stefu’s offer to stay with him along with his family, Nadia was once again in peril when after some time Stefu died in a snorkeling accident.Nadia had to move on again and this time she was offered a place to stay by Paul Ziert in Norman, Oklahoma. Interestingly, Paul and Bela Károlyi were good friends and he was also the coach of Bart Conner.
Long distance
Conner met Nadia on the Pat Sajak Show and gave her his number. This started the series of them exchanging phone calls and talking to each other for a year and a half. Then one fine day, Conner invited Nadia to help him up in opening a gymnastics school in Oklahoma.
Dating Bart
It was nostalgic for Bart to date the girl he had kissed years ago while standing on the podium during the American Cup. They used to spend a lot of time together and even performed together in the various gymnastics competition. Finally, in the year 1994 Conner proposed Nadia while they were in Amsterdam.
A lavish wedding
It would not be wrong to say that it was “the gymnastics world’s version of a royal wedding.” In April 1996, they married each other in Bucharest, Romania because the communist government was no longer there and the present one did not treat Nadia as a defector. They even had their wedding reception in the Parliament House. The pair is happily married till now.
National Holiday
It was a very emotional moment for Nadia to see around 10,000 people arrive just to see her wedding ceremony. She now no longer felt like a traitor and was instead overwhelmed to see that the people of Romania accepted her once again. The ceremony was even broadcasted on National Television and it seemed that there was a national holiday on the wedding day.