Bela Karolyi, who coached Nadia Comaneci, Mary Lou Retton and Kerri Strug to Olympic gold, has died. He was 82.
Comaneci confirmed the news. On Instagram, she captioned a series of photos of her and Karolyi: “She had a huge impact on my life. Rest in peace Bella Karolyi.
Karolyi leaves a complex legacy within the international gymnastics community. Hailed as the person who discovered Comaneci on the court in Romania, he and his wife Marta were a dynamic and formidable coaching team.
The couple were teachers at an elementary school in Transylvania when they started teaching gymnastics to children. They were soon appointed head coach of the national team and made their debut with a roster full of boys at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, a time when most Olympic-level gymnasts were approaching adulthood. The team won a silver medal and changed the face (or rather the age) of the sport for several decades.
The Montreal Games were also the place where Comaneci scored the first perfect 10 points in Olympic gymnastics history, which she did six times in the competition.
The Karolyi family came under scrutiny after criticizing the judges at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, and the two decided to stay in the U.S. after bringing their Olympic team to the country in 1981. They began training shortly after arriving and soon met Mary Lou Retton at her gym.
The Karolyis rose to prominence in U.S. gymnastics after Retton became the first American to win the Olympic all-around championship in 1984. Her gymnasts won every U.S. all-around title between 1987 and 1992, and the couple later retired after Kim Zemskal became the first American to win. World Championships.
This retirement was short-lived. Sometime between 1992 and the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the duo returned as coaches for Dominique Moschino and Kerri Strug, who were assigned to the women’s team. Karolyi pulled Strug from the basement floor after injuring her ankle in her final event of the night, earning the first medal for the U.S. women’s team.
Karolyi retired again after the 1996 Olympics, but was convinced to return to the sport after USA Gymnastics named him national team coordinator in 1999. Karolyi was removed from his position the following year after several gymnasts spoke out against his teaching methods. Marta took over after his departure.
Béla Karolyi was born on September 13, 1942 in what was then known as Kolozsvár, Hungary and is now known as Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He met his wife Marta during his senior year of college at the School of Physical Education in Romania, when he was also coaching the school’s gymnastics team. The couple married in 1963 and had a daughter, Andrea Wise.
A source