Society, economy & sport

Nadia Comaneci scores the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics

18 July 1976

On 18 July 1976, at the Montreal Olympics, the 14-year-old Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci performed on the uneven bars and received the first perfect score of 10.0 in Olympic gymnastics history. The scoreboard, designed for scores up to 9.99, could show only 1.00, as nobody had expected a perfect 10. In Montreal, she won three gold medals, one bronze and a silver, and got seven perfect tens. She later defected from Romania in 1989 and settled in the United States. Her performance changed the sport, and the scoring system was altered in 2006 with the open-ended code.

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