Early Life and Career
An ethnic Hungarian from Transylvania, she was named Katalin, which was later changed to Ecaterina by the Communists to try to hide her Hungarian background. Szabo’s first language is Hungarian; she learned to speak Romanian only after she started going to gymnastics lessons. She started gymnastics in 1973 at the Gymnastics School in Oneşti with coaches Maria Cosma and Mihai Agoston. Later she trained with Márta and Béla Károlyi. After the Károlyis' defection to the United States in 1981, she was coached by Adrian Goreac, Adrian Stan and Maria Cosma at Cetate Deva. She enjoyed tremendous success as a junior. Szabo became the first gymnast to win two Junior European all around gold titles competing against Lavinia Agache and Natalia Ilienko (in 1980) and Olga Mostepanova and Yelena Shushunova (in 1982). Individually, in 1980 she won gold on vault, beam and floor and placed fourth on uneven bars and in 1982 she won gold on vault and floor, silver on uneven bars and placed fourth on balance beam.
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