NadiaComaneci.com

An unofficial fan site.

Fan contributions

In 1975, I went to Wembley to watch the "Champions All" competition.  It was the first time I saw Nadia.  She was not well known that time, and she won the title.  I was really surprised that she won the European Championships a month after she won the Champions All.  She became my favourite gymnast when she won her first European title.

In 1979, I went to Fort Worth, Texas to watch the World Gymnastics Championships.  I saw Nadia at the shops with her team mates and Bela.  She was wearing a wrist bandage.  I touched her for the first time.  I asked her for her autograph, but she shook "No", which I quite understand.  She was upset about her wrist.  I am happy to have touched her.

Then in 1993, I went to Birmingham to watch the World Gymnastics Championships, and Nadia was in attendance.  I was so lucky that I got the chance to meet her in the audience.   I had brought December 1992's International Gymnast Magazine, in which Nadia was on the front cover.  She signed it for me, I kissed her hand, and she smiled.   I had been waiting for her autograph since 1975!!  My friend took a photo of me with Nadia in Birmingham, but the photo did not come out!!  I would love to meet her again with my own camera!

I am very proud to have met Nadia a couple of times, so let's hope that we will meet again in the new Millennium.

I became the first deaf gymnast ever to win the 1987 British Veterans Championships.   If Nadia had not became famous, I wouldn't have won the title.  Thank you, Nadia.

love,
Mike
xxx
Highbury, London, England

Mike Hawthorne, “Failed Photo”

(Update May 2007: This story was submitted by Mike Hawthorne several years ago.  Since then, the photo in question, left, was scanned and processed to make the image visible.)

I was born in the same year as Nadia Comaneci.  I became a gymnast in the same year as Olga Korbut, who won the hearts of many during the 1972 Munich Olympics.