A perfect 10

Nadia Comăneci is 14, from Romania, and not supposed to be the story of Montreal. On the uneven bars she scores a 10.0. The scoreboard shows 1.00 because nobody programmed four digits. The arena figures it out anyway.

She will score seven perfect 10s in those Games. Gymnastics had been a sport of near-misses and national programs. A perfect score, from a child, on live television, resets what the public thinks a body can do on a piece of wood and steel.

The later history of the sport is darker than that night: hours, weight, abuse, a machine. The 10.0 is still the image — a number the board could not hold, and a teenager who made the code look small.