Family members ask for prayers for famed gymnast Mary Lou Retton
Mary Lou Retton, the first American gymnast to win gold in the Olympic all-around competition, is fighting a rare form of pneumonia and has been in an ICU for more than a week, according to her family.
Retton’s daughters went public with the situation on Tuesday when they launched a fundraising drive on behalf of the former champion. Retton will need help with expenses because she’s not currently insured, the Spot Fund fundraising page says.
“We ask that if you could help in any way, that 1) you PRAY! and 2) if you could help us with finances for the hospital bill,” family members wrote, noting that Retton is “fighting for her life.”
The family has already far surpassed its goal of raising $50,000. As of Wednesday morning, Retton’s supporters had donated more than $168,000.
Who is Mary Lou Retton?
Retton became an American sports icon as a 16-year-old at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. She won five medals at that Olympics, including the United States’ first-ever gold in the all-around competition.
Retton claimed the gold medal in part by earning perfect scores for her vault and floor routine, USA Today reported. She edged out Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo by just 0.05 points.
“She also picked up a silver medal on vault and bronze medals on the uneven bars and floor exercise, in addition to another silver Olympic medal in the team event,” per USA Today. Those five medals were enough to make her the most decorated athlete at the 1984 Summer Games.
Retton helped “bring gymnastics — a sport long dominated by eastern European powers like Romania and the Soviet Union — into the mainstream in the U.S.,” according to The Associated Press.
Mary Lou Retton family
After the 1984 Olympics, Retton enjoyed a media frenzy. She was featured in a variety of magazines and appeared on a Wheaties box. She was named 1984’s “Sportswoman of the Year” by Sports Illustrated.
“Mary Lou Retton communicated the kind of 1,000-watt energy and girl-next-door wholesomeness that no other gold medal winner could match. It was love at first, second and third sight,” The Washington Post wrote about Retton’s popularity in 1985.
Although she continued to compete in gymnastics in 1984 and won the all-around at that year’s American Cup, Retton retired soon after.
“She retired from (gymnastics) in 1986 ahead of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul,” USA Today reported.
“I knew that I was not going to be one of those athletes that’s just hanging onto the sport and couldn’t retire, couldn’t let it go. I wanted people to remember me as a winner and as a champion and not some struggling older athlete that just can’t let it go. That was important to me,” Retton told NBC Sports in 2016.
Also in 1986, Retton enrolled at the University of Texas. There, she met quarterback Shannon Kelley, whom she married in 1990.
Retton and Kelley went on to have four daughters together: Shayla, Skyla, Emma and McKenna, according to People magazine. McKenna Kelley followed in her mother’s footsteps and spent time on the competitive gymnasts circuit, eventually competing for LSU.
Retton and Kelley divorced in 2018, according to The Associated Press.
Mary Lou Retton today
As she raised her daughters, Retton continued to spend part of her time in the national spotlight.
“She appeared on ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ a Dairy Queen commercial and an advertisement for Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company, which the company uploaded to YouTube last week. She served as an adviser to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness during the George H.W. Bush administration,” The Washington Post reported.
Retton, 55, now lives in Texas. On the Spot Fund fundraising page, McKenna Kelley describes her as an “amazing mom.”
