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.
Sister of Michael Jackson imitates her famous sibling.
American musician and icon Michael Jackson, who passed away in 2009 and altered pop culture history, was renowned for altering his looks. He had a strong interest in cosmetic surgery.
He allegedly received at least a dozen plastic procedures to alter the appearance of his lips, cheekbones, chin, and eye incisions, according to several surgeons. Although he hardly ever appeared in public without a mask in the last two years of his life, many people thought that plastic surgery had damaged his nose.
Jackson himself refuted claims that he underwent cosmetic surgery. He undoubtedly underwent surgery after suffering a nasal fracture. He allegedly transformed his look as a result of a skin condition. The musician’s younger sister Janet Jackson appears to have taken over as his replacement at this time. Fans were shocked to see her at the «Bal de la Rose» event after a long absence. First off, Janet doesn’t appear to be 56 years old. Perhaps the cause is not just genetics, but also the facelift of a seasoned expert.
Second, Jackson’s nose is considerably smaller than it was previously, and the incision around his eye has changed somewhat. Her skin tone has also lightened. But it could only be a carefully designed foundation. In any event, she resembles her deceased sibling in a startling way, according to online users.
Although Janet Jackson was not drawn to the entertainment industry as a youngster, she was forced to pursue it since her father made all of the decisions. She made her stage debut at the age of seven in Las Vegas alongside her siblings and went on to feature in various TV shows. She issued 11 albums, the most recent of which, Unbreakable, came out in 2015. She wed musician James DeBarge when she was 18 years old, but the couple eventually divorced. After her third husband, a millionaire, gave birth to her kid and her second husband, a singer and dancer, divorced her in 2017, Janet was once more alone.
By the way, both during and after the birth of her son, Janet Jackson put on too much weight. She did, however, reduce 50 kg, and now her weight is back to normal.
She had plainly undergone plastic surgery in addition to other alterations. The important point is that Janet does not enjoy it as much as her well-known brother.
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