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.
Mysterious plane found in the sea – Navy goes speechless when they look inside
Recently enlisted in the Navy, Jack oversaw a routine naval mission that took an unexpected turn when a submerged aircraft—first thought to be significant historically—unveiled a deadly and dark truth.
The team who discovered the airplane was intrigued by the enigmatic collection of objects they discovered, and the aircraft garnered a lot of attention.
Further investigation revealed that the plane’s last known location coincided with where it is currently resting beneath the waves. With this discovery, the group came up with a calculated plan to pull the airplane out of its watery tomb.
Years of training and experience allowed a team of divers to maneuver around the aircraft, but it was made obvious that entering the plane in its present location was not conceivable. This called for the implementation of a backup plan: the use of a huge crane that was already positioned on the ship’s deck and ready to take on the enormous task of raising the aircraft to the surface.
Jack and the rest of his team felt a tangible feeling of wonder when the aircraft finally rose above the ocean’s depths and into the light. However, they were surprised to find something unexpected when they looked inside the aircraft.
The inside displayed a startling assortment of objects rather than what they had anticipated, adding to the mystery surrounding the airplane. A small hint caught Jack’s attention, setting off a chain of events that would reveal an extraordinary criminal plot.
There was not a single piece of information that would have indicated the presence of passengers or personnel on the aircraft. Normally alive with the pilot’s actions, the cockpit was oddly quiet and deserted, raising many concerns about what might have happened before the jet crashed into the ocean.
There were hints of tinkering with the emergency exit door, which fueled rumors about what would happen to possible occupants. The mystery was further compounded by the absence of possible passengers’ personal goods, leaving Jack and his colleagues with more questions than answers.
Watch the video below to find out more.
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