Fourteen-year-old Nadia Comaneci’s performance on the uneven bars made history in 1976 by earning her a perfect score, previously unheard of in Olympic competition. Judges awarded the Romanian gymnast six more 10s before that year’s Games were over, and she left with three golds, a silver, and a bronze. For better or worse, such perfection is now a thing of the past. The sport’s governing body changed the scoring scale earlier this year, eliminating the score ceiling; an excellent routine will now receive about a 16. Comaneci’s 1976 feats were immortalized on the cover of Time, and upon her return to Romania she was named a Hero of Socialist Labour. She defected to the US in 1989.
