Nadia Comaneci becomes US citizen

Olympic gold medalist Nadia Comaneci has ended an 11-year journey to freedom when she took the oath to become a United States citizen.

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.

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

"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 Romania in 1996.

"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."