Translated by Alistair Ian Blyth
About the Book:
Nadia Comaneci is the Romanian child prodigy and global gymnastics star who ultimately fled her homeland and the brutal oppression of a communist regime. At the age of just 14, Nadia became the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10.0 at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games and went on to collect three gold medals in performances which influenced the sport for generations to come, cementing Nadia's place as a sporting legend.
However, as the communist authorities in Romania sought an iron grip over its highest-profile athletes, Nadia and her trainers were subjected to surveillance from the Securitate, the Romanian secret police. Drawing on 25,000 secret police archive pages, countless secret service intelligence documents, and numerous wiretap recordings, this book tells the compelling story of Nadia's life and career using unique insights from the communist dictatorship which monitored her.
Nadia Comaneci and the Secret Police explores Nadia's complex and combustible relationship with her sometimes abusive coaches, Béla and Marta Károlyi, figures who would later become embroiled in the USA Gymnastics scandal. The book addresses Nadia's mental struggles and 1978 suicide attempt, and her remarkable resurgence to gold at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. It explores the impact of Nadia's subsequent withdrawal from international activity and reflects on burning questions surrounding the heart-stopping, border-hopping defection to the United States that she successfully undertook in November 1989. Was the defection organised by CIA agents? Was it arranged on the orders of President George Bush himself? Or was Nadia aided and abetted by some of the very Securitate officers who were meant to be watching the communist world's most lauded sporting icon? What is revealed is a thrilling tale of endurance and escape, in which one of the world's greatest gymnasts risked everything for freedom.
Published by Bloomsbury Australia
Released 1 June 2023
My Thoughts:
'The achievements of Nadia, her trainers, her choreographer, and the entire Olympic team belonged to them, but not in their entirety: It was deemed that it was the Communist state that had created the conditions and the means whereby they were able to stand out, and their merits therefore ultimately had to be shared with the country's leader, Nicolae Ceausescu.'
I have a well-established interest in reading about life from inside the Communist Bloc as it was known throughout the Cold War (1947 - 1991). It's an interest that has grown from my sociology studies and seemingly has never dwindled away. It's a way of life that is hard to reconcile against western democratic ideals and the more I read about the various countries and the lives of their citizens and the manner in which their secret police squads exerted limitless control, the more fascinated by it all I become.
'The web of agents that the Securitate painstakingly wove in Onesti combined with a network established in Bucharest within the Romanian Federation of Gymnastics and the National Council for Physical Education and Sport. For this reason, by late 1976, the Securitate was no longer able to be caught on the wrong foot. Intelligence officers knew everything about relationships between those in charge of gymnastics as they evolved in real time, they could anticipate events and intervene promptly to further the interests of the regime.'
This book is well written and highly accessible given the heavy political themes running through it. At times, it was a little repetitive, particularly regarding the coaches, Béla and Marta Károlyi. It didn't follow a true linear format, so we seemed to rehash a lot about these coaches over and over, even after Nadia had moved on from them. The book stays away from Nadia's personal life for the most part, focusing on her gymnastics career and the trajectory it followed, or rather, how it was manipulated and directed by the State. There are times when a little more of the personal would have been appreciated, but overall, I understood the reasoning behind the author's focus and direction. This is not a biography, but rather, a closely detailed account of the politics of her career and the way in which she was policed throughout.
'Did Nadia Comaneci enjoy a life of privilege during the Communist regime, as Iulian Vlad, the head of the Securitate, later claimed? In reports compiled by the secret police after her defection, there are paragraphs pointing out that she had led a pleasant, comfortable life, that she owned a villa with seven rooms and annexes at no. 23, Strada Rozmarin and her own Dacia 1300 motorcar.
The truth was that Nadia was not financially well off. Eery month she had to pay instalments on repairs carried out on the house in Strada Rozmarin, and often she found herself in the situation of having to sell personal items in order to make ends meet. In winter, she slept in the kitchen because the house was poorly heated. Whenever she was able, she was generous towards her friends, and she was courteous to strangers. The Communist regime has exploited her both financially and politically, subjecting her to a complicated life full of restrictions in return. What privileges and honours she did receive were deserved, although they fell far short of her genius as a gymnast and the sacrifices she had made.'
When you read a book like this, it can be confronting to realise the duplicity of humanity, the way in which people can bought and put to use. The spying and informing was just shocking. There was no one who could be fully trusted. But even that raises the question of what fear and coercion these people, those who were informing, were placed under in order to comply. It cannot be assumed that they were simply all bad people, or entirely self-serving. The book explores this explicitly within the context of the sport and the gymnastics universe that existed within Romania at the time.
While fascinating and absorbing, this was also a sobering read, not just for what happened to Nadia, but for the other gymnasts as well, and the professionals that surrounded them. What a life. Anyone with an interest in communism, gymnastics, or both, will appreciate this book. Recommended reading.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
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