Career
Eberle, a pupil of the famous husband-wife coaching team Béla Károlyi and Márta Károlyi before they defected from Romania to the United States, was the first female Romanian gymnastics star to succeed Nadia Comăneci. She was often in Comăneci"s shadow because, for the greater part of Eberle"s career, they competed together. Despite this, she made a name for herself, garnering 13 individual medals at the European/World/Olympic level
She was also on the gold-medal-winning team at the 1979 World Championships, held in Fort Worth, Texas.
Despite a fall on the balance beam in the team optionals segment of the competition, her other scores were strong enough to keep the Romanian team in contention for the gold with the Soviet team lieutenant was a rare victory for the Romanians over the Soviet team, and one of the Soviets" only three World Championship or Olympic title losses between 1952, when a full women"s gymnastics program was first held at the Olympic Games, and 1992, which was the last appearance of the unified Soviet team (under the guise of the Commonwealth of Independent States).
Although a strong gymnast all-around (she was the silver medalist in the all-around twice in 1979, at that year"s World Cup and European Championships), Eberle was especially noted for her work on the uneven bars, where her routines varied greatly from year to year and even from competition to competition. She often included very quick and unusual transitions from one bar to the other.
Like the Károlyis, Comăneci, and others, Eberle left Romania, moving to Hungary in 1989 and to the United States in 1991.
She coaches in California with a fellow expatriate Romanian, the gymnastics coach and choreographer Géza Poszár. "In one word, I can say it was brutal," she told KCRA.
