Before the Junior European Championships in 2004 in Amsterdam, very little was known about Steliana Nistor, the tiny gymnast who stole the hearts of so many gymnastics fans during those championships by becoming the junior all-around champion, she also won a silver medal with the team, silver on vault and gold on floor.

How it all started…
Steliana was born on the 15th of September 1989. Her father’s name is Dumitru, her mother is also called Steliana and she has two older brothers Marian and Bogdan. Her parents have always encouraged her and helped her with everything that was needed so their daughter could do gymnastics.
Steluta (little star) or Stela, which is her nickname by coaches and friends, started gymnastics at the age of 4 at Club Sportiv Scolar in Sibiu and was noticed during the selection by former 1984 Olympic Champion with the team, Mihaela Stanulet, who thought that she had extraordinary natural qualities.
Mihaela guided Stela for the first 4 years and still thinks she’s an exceptional talent. Raluca Bugner took over and in 1998 she finished first with the team at an International competition in France. In 2001 she finished first all-around at the Romanian junior championships in her age category, won gold on bars and beam and finished third on floor.

To Onesti and her first international success.
Her performance was noticed by the coaches in Onesti and at the start of 2002, she was selected for the junior team where she trained under the guidance of Octavian Serban and her coach Raluca Bugner came with her too. In 2003 Stela started to demonstrate her value not only in Romania but also internationally and finished second at the Siska Cup and won beam and floor. On beam, at her young age, she already had a start value of 10! She won the Cefta Cup in the Czech Republic and finished first with the team and first all-around at a tri meet with the Ukraine and Hungary.
Her future looked bright and all the hard training paid off at the European Championships in 2004 where she had the highest SV of all gymnasts, juniors and seniors, on all apparatus. After the competition Stela said: ‘I want to keep on training like this and win as many medals as possible. I am there where I wanted to be.’
Then a few months later, during the national junior competition Stela walked away with 5 golds and her dominance was clear. After the competition she said: ‘It was a really good competition for me. I'm glad I won all the finals, I had expected to achieve this result after I won those gold medals at Europeans. I'm very pleased but I have to achieve (confirm) these results in the senior competitions as well. I'm convinced that, if I work as hard as I do now, my expectations will be fulfilled.’

On to Deva but then disaster strikes.
In January 2005, she was chosen as one of the hopefuls for the Olympics in 2008. Then, 4 months later, tragedy struck and the future had an unexpected twist of fate for Stela, who had started to get health problems. In April 2005, she travelled to Germany together with her coach Raluca Bugner and gymnast Andreea Munteanu to be examined at a highly regarded medical clinic but the verdict was horrific. With a herniated disc and knee problems, Stela had to be side lined for 6 months! and a special training was set up for rehab. Prophetically in 2003, Mihaela Stanulet had said the following: 'If she can stay healthy and she continues in the same rhythm, I'm convinced that, in a couple of years, she will be the best in Romania and will have an extraordinary career. Provided she doesn't get injured and she always keeps on aiming to be the best. I have a lot of faith in her.’
Could Steliana keep faith in herself while things were so tough?

Comeback.
It went very quiet around Stela and her fans were starting to worry, however slowly but surely she was making a come back. Grown a lot, she next competed at the Romanian Internationals in 2006 and won bars! After that, she was selected to compete at the Europeans in Volos, Greece and competed on bars and finished second with the team. Who doesn’t remember her tears after she saw they finished second instead of first? It meant one thing, she still had the hunger for victory and was on her way back into the team. A month later, she competed an all-around competition in Holland and finished second.
In September, during a meet between Great Britain and Romania in preparation for Worlds, Steliana was back in full force. Still wearing a knee brace, she won the all-around over Sandra Izbasa. Asked about how she felt she said: ‘I feel very good but I still have to upgrade more on two apparatus. I have to take it slowly as my health is very important to me.’
At Worlds, Steliana had to compete in all competitions and finished up doing 3 entire competitions in a very short period of time. She just missed out on a medal in the individual competition and finished fourth. Her best chance of winning a medal was on beam but because she was first up and had just come out of the darker training hall, she didn’t have the opportunity to adjust and made mistakes and finished 7th.
Utterly demoralised, Steliana thought of retiring but because of her good results in Glasgow and at the Swiss Cup, she stayed on and has set herself another goal, winning a medal in Beijing at the Olympics of 2008.
It will be interesting to see if Steluta will shine again at the Europeans in Amsterdam in 2007, the place that gave her a name in gymnastics three years ago.