Combined Reports


BUCHAREST, Romania -- Five years after Nadia Comaneci made her dramatic escape from this former Communist country, Romanians have mixed feelings about the return of the gymnastics star.


Her fans think she is still golden. Her critics say she should not bother coming home.


"I am very happy to be back. It's a great moment," giggled Comaneci on Monday night, as hundreds of well-wishers clutching flowers pressed to get a view of their former star on her return at Bucharest's Otopeni international airport. She was accompanied by fiance Bart Conner, an American Olympic gold medal gymnast.


"I returned often from competitions but this return is for me the most emotional one," she said.


Whether they call her difficult or a diva, the one thing Romanians all remember is the shining talent of the 14-year-old girl who scored the world's first perfect 10 in gymnastics at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.


It's a talent that continues to illuminate the way for Romania, which this weekend won the women's gold medal at the World Team Gymnastics Championships in Dortmund, Germany. Comaneci flew in with the team Monday.


Comaneci's hectic 10-day schedule on the fifth anniversary of her escape includes a visit to the gym which made her a star in her home town of Onesti in northeastern Romania. A giddy social whirl in the capital includes a meeting with President Ion Iliescu.


But, some say Nadia's golden crown in the gym is tarnished by her sometimes turbulent personal life and an alleged lack of commitment to the sport, from retirement in 1982 to the moment she mysteriously fled the country one month before the collapse of the Communist regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.


"I don't know why she is coming back," said architect Mircea Lupan, 45, citing the gymnast's former links with the dictator's son, Nicu Ceausescu, and what he considered "a failure to raise the level of the sport."


Shortly after her escape she alienated potential sponsors when she shrugged off her relationship with a married man with several children with a nonchalant "So what?"


Her fans, however, are convinced that a new Nadia, now 33, has blossomed in the United States.


"She is a real lady now. She isn't the Nadia that didn't smile. She lives in a civilized world," said George Raetchi, author of a book about Nadia's life since she went to the United States.


Comaneci has never clearly explained her reasons for defecting or why she has taken so long to pay a return visit.


On Tuesday, she shed little light on the escape, saying at a news conference: "I did what I thought was right when I left Romania. I will write a book on the way I left the country."


On why she had waited five years to return to the country of her birth, she said: "I was waiting for a good opportunity to return to Romania. I wanted to return immediately after the revolution, but I had a difficult life."


On Tuesday, Comaneci pledged $100,000 to help train other athletes.


"I didn't have this money until now, I have it now and I will give them to developing Romanian gymnastics," she said. "I thought many times before about paying a visit to Romania not only to say hello, but to offer real help to Romanian gymnasts," she said, speaking in Romanian.


Comaneci said she would also consider a further donation to build a sports hall in Onesti, her native city where 25 years ago she began her sensational gymnastic career.


The world championship team Comaneci flew home with is far more commercially minded than its predecessor ever dared to be, and went on strike last month over non-payment of bonuses.