Letters to a Young Gymnast (9 page)

When I opened the door of my room, Bela looked horrified. He had seen my face in the stands but hadn't been certain it was me. I had gained quite a bit of weight, and I was out of shape. He sat down, and we began to talk. He wasn't angry; he was nice and parental. I know that I cried, remembering the old days and my past glory. I rarely cry and never in front of people. If I cry, I do it alone because I don't want anyone to see me upset . . . so that day, I must have been
extremely
distressed.

“Do you think you can come back, Nadia?” Bela asked.

“I don't know—sometimes I want to, but sometimes I think I can't do it,” I replied.

“Do you want to come back?”

Again, I was uncertain. “I like the end results,” I explained, “but I don't know if I can get there.”

He told me that it would be hard. Probably, he said, the hardest thing I'd ever do in my life. It would be incredibly difficult for me to regain my body, power, and skills, but he knew I could do it, Bela said. I agreed but
added that if I couldn't give 100 percent, then it wouldn't work.

“Nadia, let me tell you what to expect before you make a final decision,” Bela said. “If you come back with me, there is absolutely no way you will get out of going to the World Championships. The government wants you, more than anybody else, to compete in Strasbourg. Your conditioning will be the ultimate torture, and ready or not, you will have to go to those championships.”

You asked me why I didn't just retire once I grew tired of gymnastics. Do you still not understand who I am? I don't give up, ever. I don't run away from a challenge because I am afraid. Instead, I run toward it because the only way to escape fear is to trample it beneath your feet.

■
The Scorpion

Friend, my 1978 decision to return to Deva was tougher than you might imagine. I had no one to help me make the choice. My mother always had a stock answer—“If you want to do it, do it. If not, quit.” If she'd said otherwise, if she'd ever tried to push me, I would never have become a gymnast in the first place. That is
the way I am. If someone tells me to do something, I won't do it. I firmly believe that if you do anything solely because somebody else wants you to do it, then things won't work out.

After weighing my decision and balancing out the pros and cons, I agreed to go to Deva on the condition that I no longer had to live in the dormitory with the younger gymnasts. The federation and Bela agreed to the compromise and got my mom and brother a temporary house nearby. It was small—only two rooms, with my brother and I sharing one—but it was ours. We got a dog, Becky, who was my tiny best friend. Being home with my family gave a balance to my life that I hadn't had before.

Bela was true to his word. My training was torture. Before dawn each day, we took a run, just Bela and me, and I wore lots of layers of clothing and did conditioning exercises while running. The following three hours were spent in the gym training, and afterward, I'd go for a second run, followed by a massage. After the rubdown, I did weight training, took a sauna, and did a shorter run. Bela was with me every moment. Most of the extra weight on my bones fell off, but I was exhausted. I'd roll out of the gym . . . I could hardly walk.

We didn't do much gymnastics at first because Bela didn't feel comfortable having me try to perform skills when I wasn't conditioned. He was a stickler about that because with a different body, I might have hurt myself. I sucked it up and did everything as he instructed; it was like the old days. My meals consisted of salads and fruits at first—nothing else. I craved everything that was bad for me. And unlike the old days, I now knew what ice cream and other desserts tasted like. For the first few
weeks, I had to stay at Bela and Marta's home so that they could keep me under strict supervision. If they hadn't, I would have sneaked food.

I am not saying that my eating regimen during those first few weeks was right for anyone trying to get in shape or lose weight. You have to remember that I'd had years of healthy eating that had made my bones and body strong. A few weeks of lighter food couldn't hurt me. I realize that body misperceptions and eating disorders are an enormous problem for young girls, but I don't believe that depriving a body of the protein and fats it needs will help anyone achieve overall health. I am not a doctor, so I can't give much advice on this subject except to say that eating a balanced diet and getting exercise is the only way I know to maintain a healthy mind and body. Once Bela and Marta had gotten me back on track with my eating, I was permitted to live at home with my mother and brother, and I resumed following a well-balanced diet.

You asked if there were moments when I was ready to give up. Yes, there were, but Bela wouldn't let me. I had made a commitment to him and to myself, and he would see that I met it. Slowly, I started to dream more of my glory days, the Olympics, and other competitions. I began to dream about skills and realized that I missed being a great gymnast. I'd tried a “regular” life, and it wasn't for me. I wasn't happy being like everyone else. I missed the thing that made me special. When I moved to Bucharest, I'd never officially decided to retire; there was no big celebration for me or a huge reward. Instead, I'd halfheartedly continued training and disappeared through the back door. It was not a style that became me.

After the first few weeks of training, I wanted to be back on top. But as you pointed out in your last letter, it's easier said than done. Training, especially as an elite gymnast, is repetitive and at times boring, and it can be painful and frustrating. Mostly, it's a solitary endeavor. No matter how much support you're given from family, friends, and coaches, ultimately you have to succeed on your own. The only things that are concrete come from each individual. The power to make it to the top and stay there comes from within alone. I like challenges, the harder the better. I love being told something is impossible because I want to do what no one has ever done before. I long to be the groundbreaker.

My goals when I moved to Deva were clear. I wanted to get back to where I was before. It wasn't about the Worlds or the European Championships or the next Olympics. It was about proving that I could accomplish what the media and world thought was not possible. If I wanted to retire later, fine. But for the moment, I wanted to be the best again, period. So, 1978 was my year to return to reality, and it was a tough adjustment. I wasn't ready at the World Championships and struggled to finish my floor routine. Five weeks was not enough time to make up for a year without discipline. Bela believed that the competition would wake me up, motivate me, and show me the process I needed to complete to get back on top. He was right. The floor and bars were the worst because I simply couldn't carry any extra weight and be as good as I had been. It's hard enough to propel yourself through the air or hang from your arms when you're in perfect condition, but if you add pounds, tough skills become almost impossible because your timing and strength are off.

There were glimmers of the past, particularly on the beam, where I won a gold medal. The beam is an event that requires leg strength more than arm strength, and I still had the lower-body power. But I tasted humility at that competition and couldn't wait to get out of the arena. It was an experience I was determined to erase from my memory the moment it was over. I recognized that it was nobody's fault but mine; I'd created the situation with my own hands, and I would just have to live through it. That's the way I look at every episode in my life. The negatives are fleeting. Nothing is big enough to damage me. You've asked me how I could get through the tough spots, and my only answer is that I did it by imposing a perspective on the situation.

At the Worlds, Bela was pleased with the younger girls, who'd won four medals, and with my efforts. We heard that Ceausescu was very disappointed with the results of the competition (we didn't win) and by my own performance. It is so strange to think that the leader of my country watched gymnastics—let alone me—or that he cared how I did. Stranger still is to comprehend that he believed my abilities reflected on our system of government. After the Worlds, the media wrote that I was done and over the hill. I chose not to listen to them. It would have been a waste of time. Listening to negative feedback does nothing for anyone. There are so many people in the world ready to find fault. I don't believe in giving them power by paying attention to them. I believe in being your own biggest supporter because that means you will always have someone in your corner.

I returned to Deva. Undaunted by my experiences at the Worlds, I continued to train. My relationship with Bela began to change. He started to treat me as an adult,
to consult me on my own training and ideas. There were days when I disagreed with the number of repetitions of skills necessary; for example, Bela would tell me to do five dismounts from the beam, and I knew I only needed to do three. He started trusting me to know what my body needed. He knew I wasn't being lazy, that I was being smart. He also began to let me teach some of the little ones their compulsory routines. I loved coaching. I was demanding but understanding. If the gymnasts were too tired to finish their last repetition, I'd say, “Okay, but you do two for me tomorrow,” and they always would. They came to me for counsel, and I really liked taking care of them and being helpful.

My routine workouts changed. When I was younger, I had to learn skills and do countless repetitions because I needed to store lots of knowledge in my bag so I would have things to pull out and use during competitions. By 1979, all my skills were automatic. Whatever I needed was already in my bag, and so I just had to keep my body in shape. I did far fewer repetitions of strengthening skills such as sit-ups and only three hours of training, which included running; refining dance skills; practicing small sequences of my bar, beam, and floor exercises; and stretching. I spent about eighteen minutes a day of actual time on the apparatus plus conditioning. Think about it, a routine on the bars is only thirty-five seconds long, and then there's a ten-minute recuperation. The same goes for each event. Changing my equipment and shoes cost a little bit of time. Plus, there's warm-up and cool-down time.

Whatever I did worked. Seven months after the Worlds, I won the all-around gold at the European Championships. I was tall, lean, and unbelievably powerful.
I was a new Nadia—transformed. Being a champion is about pushing yourself beyond the possible and believing in your abilities even when everyone around you says you aren't capable. Over the hill? I wasn't even close. I was back on top, and the only way I'd step down again was by my own volition.

What did you mean, my friend, when you wrote that in return for accomplishing my goals, I sacrificed my childhood? Just when I think you're starting to understand me! Never have I thought about gymnastics as a sacrifice. Never. You have been misled by the stories you've read in books, magazines, and newspapers about how emotionally devastating gymnastics can be and about the supposedly destructive relationships between young girls and their coaches, food, and pain. I am not saying that some gymnasts have not suffered. I do not know them and therefore can't judge. And I am also not saying that all coaches are good or that many young girls don't face eating disorders or lapses in judgment in relation to dealing with physical problems and pain. I'm just saying that I never had those experiences.

Gymnastics was never a torture for me. Even as a child, I knew that everyone did something for a living. You can sacrifice your time to travel to a job or spend countless hours at a desk . . . for what? Maybe it's to make a better jingle for a laundry detergent. Maybe you'll choose to stand on a factory line and build a car, or perhaps you'll sell real estate. Why is that better or worse than what I chose? Life is full of sacrifices, but I loved what I was doing, which is more than can be said for most people. Do you love your life? If so, why are you seeking answers from others? Your letters are not just filled with questions about tabloid fodder, they are
deep and real and probing because you are searching for something more in your own life. I don't know if I have any answers for you, but I'm willing to share my experiences.