The gymnastics champion sprang to stardom at the 1984 Olympics, where she became the first American woman to win a gold medal in the all-around competition. Her family is raising money online, saying she lacks health insurance.
May Lou Retton at the 1984 Olympics, where she won five medals.
Mary Lou Retton, who became one of the most popular athletes in the country after winning the all-around women’s gymnastics competition at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, has pneumonia and is “fighting for her life” in the intensive care unit, her daughter said in a statement this week.
Retton’s daughter McKenna Lane Kelley said on Instagram that her mother “is not able to breathe on her own” and that she had been in the intensive care unit for more than a week.
Kelley asked for donations to help pay for her mother’s hospital bills, saying her mother lacked health insurance. By Wednesday, she had raised more than $260,000 online from more than 4,600 donors.
She did not share more specific information about her mother’s condition, though she said that her pneumonia was “a very rare form.” It was not clear what hospital Retton was in.
Kelley, who was a gymnast at Louisiana State University, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, another daughter, Shayla Kelley Schrepfer, released a video on Instagram thanking people for “all the love and support that you’ve given to my mom.”
“She’s still fighting,” Schrepfer said. “It’s going to be a day-by-day process, and we hope that you guys will respect her boundaries, as we want to keep the details between her and our family right now. She has been treated with the best of the best professionals here, and it has been such a blessing to have their hands on her.”
At the 1984 Olympics, Retton became the first American woman to win the all-around gold medal or any individual Olympic medal in gymnastics. Going into the final rotation of the competition, she was five-hundredths of a point behind Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo, and the only way she could beat Szabo was to score a perfect 10 on vault.
Retton scored a perfect 10.
She won five medals in Los Angeles, including two silvers, for team and vault, and two bronzes, for uneven bars and floor exercise.
Though there was an asterisk by Retton’s victory in the history books — the Soviet Union, which was the most dominant force in women’s gymnastics at the time, boycotted the 1984 Games — it nonetheless made her a sports hero in the United States. In addition to earning her the traditional trappings of Olympic gold, like appearing on a Wheaties box, she was widely viewed as an inspiration to a new generation of American girls entering gymnastics.
Even as the American gymnastics program grew and the country won more medals, including the team gold in 1996, Retton’s prominence remained: For 20 years, Retton, now 55, was the only American woman to win the all-around title, until Carly Patterson became the second in 2004.
Retton was born in Fairmont, W.Va., and got her start early, like many top gymnasts. By the time Retton was 7 years old, she was training in gymnastics full-time.
Retton’s talent had been apparent from the start, but a big break came at an Olympics elimination tournament in Reno, Nev., in 1982, where she impressed Bela Karolyi, who would go on to coach her in the 1984 Olympics.
“I immediately recognized the tremendous physical potential of this little kid,” Karolyi said in a March 1984 interview.
Retton appeared in a number of films and TV shows in the late 1980s and 1990s, including the comedy film “Scrooged.”
After her athletic career, Retton became a motivational speaker to promote the benefits of proper nutrition and regular exercise.
19 People Who Have Broken All the Laws of Logic
Things are made with a purpose — they have labels to avoid mix-ups, that ready-to-drink juice box has a special spot to be poked with a straw, there are written statements that make a point, and fixable items, so you don’t always have to buy new ones when they break. Yet somehow some people disregard all of these things and prefer to do things in a more roundabout way. They make you question their motives in your head, but to them it’s just another way to do something.
1. Who needs the holes in the roll when you can make your own?
2. Since the tea and coffee got mixed up, let’s just change the labels.
3. Not so secret after all.
4. Irony is when a magazine about the dangers of plastic is wrapped in plastic.
5. Brands are just labels, right?
6. Turns out the sample is the actual size despite the disclaimer.
7. Who knew that a glue stick and clothes pins belong in the cutlery drawer?
8. Because cutting the carpet is easier than cutting the door.
9. Instead of getting a pre-cut piece, someone scooped a piece near the edge.
10. This engraver went the extra mile and engraved the instructions.
11. A hospital was turned into a crime scene.
12. Makes you wonder what the purpose of the label is.
13. Why poke with the straw when you can turn it into a makeshift cup?
14. Hey, whatever works…
15. It’s not practical, but the phone colors pop.
16. Why use the top when you can open it on the side?
17. Solar energy plates being shaded from the sun.
18. Setting a new fashion trend.
19. Fixing a broken clock by placing a new one on top
Which of the pictures above reminds you of what you or someone you know has done before? Can you think of more things that people do that do not make sense? Tag anyone you know who follows their own rules!
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