COMANECI BECOMES U.S. CITIZEN
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OKLAHOMA CITY -- Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci ended an 11-year
journey to freedom when she took the oath to become a United States
citizen.

"The world is open today," Comaneci, 39, said after a ceremony at the
Oklahoma City federal courthouse. "But it wasn't always that way."

Comaneci captured the world's attention at the age of 14, earning seven
perfect scores and winning three gold medals and the all-around title
in gymnastics in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Not much was heard from Comaneci after she returned home to Romania,
at the time a Soviet bloc country under the repressive control of 
Nicolae Ceausescu.

Comaneci had a privileged life that included cars, jewelry and a villa, 
but she did not have freedom, she said. "I come from a wonderful 
country with wonderful people," Comaneci said. "But we were living with 
a system telling us how to live."

Months before a revolution that eventually led to Ceausescu's death,
Comaneci and six others trudged for six hours through mud in 1989 to
Hungary and the freedom she sought. From there, she made it to the
United States.

Comaneci met up later with gymnastics coach and former Olympic gold
medalist Bart Conner. The two were married in a state ceremony in her
native Romania in 1996.

Conner stood nearby, snapping photos during the ceremony.

"I never thought I would be standing here, married to an All-American 
guy, living in Oklahoma," she told a packed courtroom at the ceremony. 
"What a country."