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.
Defying Beauty Norms: 31-Year-Old Teacher Proudly Rejects Eyebrow Tweezing and Mustache Waxing
A 31-year-old Danish woman who is undoubtedly defying social norms on beauty refuses to remove her mustache and is unconcerned about her unibrow. Meet Eldina Jaganjac, a Copenhagen-born teacher who has rejected society’s standards of beauty, especially those pertaining to men.
In March 2020, Eldina took a risk by allowing her facial hair to grow and embracing her 31-year-old natural appearance. She discovered a certain liberation in accepting herself exactly as she is, in defiance of the conventional beauty standards that encourage women to be sleek and hairless. Naturally, not everyone found this to be acceptable. Men were bold enough to remark that she appeared to have a “third head” staring at them. But Eldina finds that her facial hair serves as a great filter, preventing her from interacting with people she would prefer not to.
Eldina is convinced that her mustache and unibrow deter “conservative” suitors, allowing her to attract guys who value her personality above appearances.
She revealed, “I used to think that women’s fashion choices were limited to a few selections. I had a constant obsession with getting my eyebrows just right before I accepted my unibrow. If a man neglects to shave his beard, nobody seems to care. It’s simply accepted as normal.
Eldina went on, “Like many other women, I used to be so strict with myself.” If my eyebrows weren’t well-groomed, I wouldn’t leave the house, and if my legs weren’t flawlessly waxed, I wouldn’t go to the gym.
But things have since changed. Now, I’ve made the decision to pay more attention to my responsibilities and objectives and less to how I look. She stated matter-of-factly, “I’m not going to lose sleep over it, and even if I did, I just wouldn’t care.”
Eldina claims that initially, it didn’t feel right. She said with a hint of well-earned sarcasm, “But if people have nothing better to do than yell at strangers, then that’s their problem.”
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