Romania legend's homecoming inspires hope

'World's best gymnast'

The gym, now called "Nadia Comaneci", which has a huge mosaic mural with nearly 500,000 pieces of marble depicting the athlete, is also to be modernized under the project to renovate the club.

It's there that young gymnasts like 14-year-old Adelina Badic train.

"To me, Nadia Comaneci is the best gymnast in the world, and I would love to be like her," she said.

A bit disappointed that she could not compete in front of her idol because of a hand injury, Badic said she started doing gymnastics at the age of four after her mother noticed she needed a place to expend her energy.

It's the same motivation Comaneci had when she started at six.

Badic, who says she learned from Comaneci that "you can't get anywhere without hard work", trains six hours a day and dreams of competing in the next Olympics.

A younger colleague of hers, nine-year-old Natalia Ungurasu, was beaming after finishing third in the uneven bars competition.

It was her first podium and it happened in front of Comaneci.

"I have learned (from her) that anything we desire can be achieved through hard work," she said.