Mary Lou Retton Says She Was ‘Thought of a Large Woman’ at 4 Toes 9 and 94 lbs at Peak of Gymnastics Fame (Unique)

Mary Lou Retton is aware of lots concerning the stress Olympic athletes are underneath whereas coaching for the Video games.

 When she was simply 12 years outdated, she left her residence in Fairmont, West Virginia, and moved to Houston to dwell with a number household and prepare with notorious gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi, who had advised her he may make her a star.

 4 years later, on the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Retton’s arduous work paid off: She was the primary American lady to take residence the gold within the ladies’s all-around, and he or she turned an in a single day nationwide sensation.

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“My coach Bela Karolyi checked out me and stated, ‘Mary Lou, you have to give a ten,'” Retton, 56, tells PEOPLE of the moments earlier than her large win. “He’d by no means stated that earlier than.”

She stated, “I used to be like, ‘You’re placing stress on me? I’ll present you!’” She then delivered essentially the most technically excellent vault she may muster.

“You possibly can see on the video that I used to be smiling earlier than my toes touched the ground,” she says, remembering how she caught the touchdown. “The Pauley Pavilion was shaking with all of the cheering,” she says. “They have been all shouting, ‘Ten! Ten! Ten!’”

Retton turned a star, however she says her fame and glory got here at a worth.

“I used to be starved,” she admits, recalling how she was advised she wanted to appear to be her extraordinarily skinny Japanese European gymnastics counterparts. “I used to be thought-about the fats one.”

Within the many years since then, a number of high gymnasts have accused Karolyi and his spouse Marta, each now retired, of being verbally and psychologically abusive.

“Verbally, we weren’t abusive,” Marta advised Dateline NBC in 2018. “Emotionally, it relies on the particular person. You need to be a robust particular person to have the ability to deal with the stress.”

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However Retton says it wasn’t simply her former coaches who thought-about her “an enormous lady.” The media did, as nicely—and he or she says it damage her deeply.

“I used to be thought-about an enormous lady. I used to be 4’9″ and 94 kilos. A giant lady! However that is what I used to be thought-about,” she says. “I used to be thought-about ‘the fats one.’ And I wasn’t fats in any method form or kind.”

She provides, “It simply hurts. It hurts to be referred to as one thing that you just’re not.”

“They’d say, ‘You’re heavy. This isn’t what gymnastics is meant to appear to be.’ They used to name me—who’s the man with the large thighs? Earl Campbell. They’d say, ‘Mary Lou with the Earl Campbell thighs,'” she recollects of being likened to the previous soccer operating again. “It wasn’t a praise.”

She says the scrutiny, fame, and the truth that she was simply 16-years-old when all of this was occurring, left her feeling lonely.

“It was so foolish to suppose, ‘I’m going to win the Olympics and my life will return to being regular,’” she says.

“That didn’t occur. My degree of fame was loopy.” She recollects unveiling a brand new Wheaties field that includes basketball star Michael Jordan. “He advised me, ‘Mary Lou, fame doesn’t change you. It adjustments everybody round you.’ I nonetheless felt like the identical little hillbilly from West Virginia, however my God, all of them modified. I felt very alone.” 

Nonetheless now, when she sees gymnasts who take pleasure in wanting robust and muscular, she feels a way of accomplishment.

“I really feel like I began that,” she says with a smile.

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