July 18 marks one of the most notable days in gymnastics history: the first perfect 10.

On this day 50 years ago, a 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci, now 64, scored what is considered the first-ever perfect 10 for her uneven bars routine during the women’s team final of the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games.

Before the Games, OMEGA – the Olympic Games’ official timekeeper and scorer – had asked if the scoreboards needed to be updated to accommodate for four digits. Event organizers said it wouldn’t be necessary.

It happens to all of us at some point: you assume something, and it turns out to be wrong.

“I looked around to see what was going on and then I saw the problem or whatever was happening with the scoreboard,” Comaneci told Olympics.com in 2019. “I didn’t understand it but I was like, whatever it is, it’s something wrong so I am just going to concentrate on my next event.

“One of my teammates said, ‘I think it is a 10 or there is something wrong with the scoreboard.’ I knew at least I was going to get a 9.9 – because a 1.0 was way too low.”

Indeed, a 1.0 was too low for the bars set, although in the era of heavily-scrutinized NCAA perfect 10s, some fans question how Comaneci was awarded a perfect mark with a hop on the dismount.

We certainly weren’t at the judges table or in the media mixed zone. After all, this writer wouldn’t be born for another 20 years at the time of the first 10. But there are some running theories as to why Comaneci was awarded a 10 for a visually-imperfect routine.

The likely case was any minor deduction on the dismount was erased by a virtuosity bonus, which was part of the Code of Points during this time period. The other argument is judges had scored previous competitors so high, and Comaneci performed so much better than them, that they had no choice but to award a 10.0.

Whatever the case, Comaneci would go on to five medals at those 1976 Games: three gold (all-around, bars, and beam), one silver (team), and one bronze (floor). She would also score seven total perfect 10s in Montreal and become the first Romanian gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title.

Comaneci competed at the 1980 Moscow Games as well, winning two gold (beam and floor) and two silver (team and all-around).