A scoreboard built decades earlier had no way to display the number a fourteen year old was about to earn.

A Flawless Routine

Nadia Comăneci was fourteen years old when she walked toward the uneven bars at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. She behaved with an even focus and did not show emotion. Small and visibly muscular, the young Romanian athlete followed her training with strict discipline and was about to change how people view gymnastics. When she leaped onto the bars, she performed a required routine with exact movements and high speed. It is a fact that her technique was so accurate that the judges could not find any errors. There was nothing for the judges to remove from her score.

And Nadia dismounted the bars to land with controlled foot movement and a stable position. She held her body in a straight position and smiled while the crowd made loud noises - but a moment of confusion happened in the arena immediately after. On the electronic scoreboard, the number 1.00 appeared.

1.00 Means Perfect

Due to the way engineers designed the scoreboard, this number did not represent an error by the judges. Before the Games started, officials and the companies that provided the timing equipment did not prepare for a 10.00 score. On that account the gymnastics scoreboard had only three digits, which limited the visible numbers to 9.99. When the judges awarded a score of 10.0, the system showed 1.00 instead. To fix the confusion, commentators had to tell millions of viewers that 1.00 meant the performance was perfect.

In the 1976 Montreal Games, Nadia Comăneci continued to perform and earned seven scores of 10.0. To reach this total, she received the first perfect score on the uneven bars during the team competition plus obtained six more on both the uneven bars and the balance beam. By the end of the event, she was the winner of gold medals in the individual all-around, uneven bars, and balance beam categories. And she also earned a silver medal with her team and a bronze medal for her floor exercise. For many viewers those routines showed that a person can move with a high degree of control as well as range of motion.

The Man Behind Her

Due to the training of her coach, Béla Károlyi, she was able to reach this level of skill. As a talent scout in Romania, Károlyi found her and instructed her from a young age. It is true that his methods are strict and focus on high levels of discipline, and while many people now criticize the methods for being severe, the routines in Montreal are examples of high athletic skill.

When Nadia achieved those scores, the sports industry had to change quickly. To prepare for the future, officials updated scoring displays and arena technology. If a gymnast performs a perfect routine now, the scoreboards are able to show 10.00 instead of 1.00. On that night in Montreal, the actions of a teenager were a major reason the technology of the sport had to improve at a fast pace.