Comaneci Says She Was Target of Ceausescu

Former Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci said her defection just weeks before Romania’s Communist government crumbled had so embarrassed leader Nicolae Ceausescu that he ordered her hunted down and brought back.

Comaneci, 28, who surprised the world when she fled Romania, said she hopes to visit her homeland after its crisis ends. Ceausescu, the last of the ironclad Stalinist leaders in the Warsaw Pact countries, was executed with his wife Monday.

Comments from Comaneci were included in a release issued in New York announcing that David Frost’s company, David Paradine Television Inc., would produce the film of her story.

“I hope that through the movie and public statements I can be of more help to my countrymen than by returning to live in Bucharest,” Comaneci’s statement said.