Béla Károlyi

Béla Károlyi was a gymnastics coach and an ethnic Hungarian Romanian-American. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralized training system for gymnastics. One of his earliest protégés was Nadia Comăneci, the first Olympic Games gymnast to be awarded a perfect score. Living under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Károlyi frequently clashed with Romanian officials. He and his wife defected to the United States in 1981.