Kati Szabo Update

Back in 1984, the entire world watched the Los Angeles Olympics on television. All of Romania followed the gymnastics team with bated breath. The tension was even greater in a village in Covasna county, where Tamas and Etelka Szabo eagerly waited to watch their daughter, Ecaterina, perform. She was unstoppable, winning one gold medal after another in the vault, floor, beam and team finals. Almost 18 years passed since that day. Kati, as everyone calls her, now lives in France with her husband Cristian Tamas and 5-year old son , Lorenzo.

The Szabo family house blends in with all the rest in Zagon village (Covasna county). Ecaterina’s parents are modest, always straight forward when talking about their daughter. “When she was around 3 years old, she started tumbling on a beam in our backyard. Everyone told us our daughter is talented. Back then, I was a bus driver in Brasov and I took her to Dinamo. There, they told me to enroll her at Onesti, at the gymnastics school. She was 5 years old when I first took her to Bela Karolyi. He took her in a year later, when she also started school. Poor thing, she didn’t speak one word in Romanian. She learnt it at school,” remembered her father. “people don’t know how much she cried. If I were to do things all over again, I wouldn’t send her into gymnastics,” said her mother.

Years of scarifies followed. Training sessions were grueling. Many times, Kati’s parents found her crying. When she was in 5th grade, she was transferred to the famous Cetate Deva gymnastics club , where she was coached Adrian Goreac, Adrian Stan and Maria Cosma. “Sometimes, we would go to the gym as often as twice a week, because she wanted to see us,” said her mother. All the hard work paid off, when medals and trophies started piling on. She brought home four gold medals and a silver from the 1984 summer Olympics. The first secretary of Covasna county was dying to meet her. He gave her a huge shelf and a wood trophy , with her carved image on it.

Kati’s successful career did not stop at the Olympics. She continued competing, and retired in 1987, after a seven-year career. She enrolled at the Sports University in Bucharest, then she worked as a coach at Deva. Some of her students include Nadia Hategan and Andreea Cacovean. In 1991, she married Cristian Tamas, a former kayak team member. However, Kati felt she had no future in Romania. ‘I received [job] offers from al over the world. I eventually settled for France , because it’s not too far from home and I can come back and visit more often,” said Kati in a phone interview conducted on Tuesday, which also happened to be her birthday. After years of hard work and sacrifices, Romania was unable to offer anything [in return] to the former champion. She chose to leave the country, like Nadia Comăneci did before her.

Kati lives in Chamalieres, France and coaches children at a club, “baby-gym", as the French [???] call it. "everything is going well. The children are between ages 3 and 12, and I love my job,” said Kati. Her son is now 5 years old and attends kindergarten. He is extremely talented, not only when it comes to gymnastics, but also learning foreign languages. He speaks fluent French, Romanian, and Hungarian, and he’s learning English now. “This really is something special. French people don’t really earn many foreign languages, Lorenzo already speaks four languages, even though he didn’t even start school yet. He always misses his grandparents, but unfortunately we cannot go back home that often. At most, once a year,” explained Kati.

Last year, Kati Szabo was inducted in the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame, alongside other gymnastics greats, Li Ning of China, Germany’s Maxi Gnauck and Haruhiro Yamashita of Japan. Nadia Comăneci and her husband Bart Conner also attended the induction ceremony. So far, Romanian gymnastics is represented by Nadia, coach Bela Karolyi, Ecaterina Szabo and Teodora Ungureanu in the Hall of Fame.

Last time she visited Zagon with her family, the village kindergarten was named in her honor. The former gymnast got a chance to relive her moment of glory. “It’s good to know your name hasn’t been forgotten, even after all these years. It means all you’ve done is still appreciated,” said an emotional Kati.

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