19. The unflappable Nadia Comaneci is considered by many to have been the greatest beam worker of all time. However, what was unusual about her beam performance in the optional part of the team competition at the 1979 World Championships?
From Quiz Balance Beam
Answer:
she competed a one-handed routine
She had seemed to be in great shape to win Worlds after the compulsory part of the team competition. Unfortunately, she had scratched herself on a palm guard, and by the time the stoic Nadia told anyone about it, she had blood poisoning up the arm and had to have her arm bandaged. She was supposed to sit out the rest of the meet. The rest of Karolyi's team was made up of very young, untried gymnasts, but by the time they got to beam, they had set themselves up to win the team competition anyway. Then Emilia Eberle fell and it seemed that all was lost. Nadia got up and performed a perfect one-handed beam routine, securing her place in gymnastics history yet again and clinching the team gold medal. She scored a 9.950 on it. By the way, the Romanian team actually did walk out of a competition after a scoring controversy involving Nadia. That was at the event finals of the 1977 European Championships. The Romanian Gymnastics Federation forced them to walk out with two events left to go because they felt that Nadia had been cheated out of her vault gold.