A Mixed Reception
When the young Olympic star arrived in the United States, there was a lot of media coverage of her arrival. Journalists relentlessly pursued Nadia with questions of her plans. Nadia, who was known for keeping her cool in stressful situations, answered with broken English and a smile. Mostly America was pleased that Nadia had was there, but her arrival was cast in shadow as rumors began spreading…
A Mixed Reception
Secrecy
Constantin Panait was a married man, and the two of them were staying in hotels and motels together, rumors began spreading like wildfire tarring Nadia as a homewrecker. On one occasion when a reporter commented that Panait was married, Nadia responded with “so what?” She later said this was due to her poor command of the English language. Nadia said that Panait had told her to come and live with his wife and children on arrival, and she accepted, accepting his participation in her future as fair payment for risking it all to get her out of Romania. It was to become apparent, however, that Panait kept Nadia isolated, capitalizing on her lack of spoken English.
Secrecy
