Hello Mary Lou

I don’t need to listen to any man discuss women’s gymnastics, do you? I’m listening to these two commentators, Tim Daggett and Justin Spring, so pragmatically discuss how Simone Biles’ step out of bounds, twice, on tumbling routines, one of them the hardest pass in the world, would probably cost her the gold. The word powerful is thrown around for every black gymnast and gymnast of color. Get a thesaurus, prepare for the Olympics like the athletes do, it only comes around every four years and just knowing how to pronounce the names isn’t enough. Then the camera cuts to Tom Brady, private jet enthusiast and denier of strawberries, and one of the commentators so effortlessly rattles off all of his Super Bowl rings. Bitch, read the room. 

I remember the 1984 Summer Olympics well, hosted by Los Angeles, they were easy to watch live on the east coast. I was ten years old. American Mary Lou Retton won 5 medals total, the first all-around gold, ever, for the US in women’s gymnastics, two silver and two bronze. She scored a perfect 10 on the vault. Many sports used to be scored with 10.0 as the highest mark, a much more satisfying notion than what’s happening now, even though what happens now is more accurate in reflecting skill and execution. The LA Olympics were the first ones I remember because, in 1980, the US boycotted the Moscow games, one of 65 nations refusing to participate in an attempt to pressure the Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan after the 1979 invasion. The 1980 Olympics saw all of the gymnastics medals go to the Soviet Union, East Germany and Romania. The Eastern Bloc countries dominated gymnastics in general.

Mary Lou Retton was the first female on the Wheaties box

The 1984 Olympics, held in Los Angeles, during the Cold War, before Gorbachev and glasnost, were major. The Soviet Union, East Germany and Cuba boycotted them and Mary Lou Retton was the first US gymnast to win a gold medal in the all-around competition, and the team won a silver in the all-around competition. We were nuts for gymnastics that summer. I certainly wasn’t scrutinizing the weird patriotism of it all, the American flag leotards, or had any concept of the intense geo-political climate. To further stoke the flames of our gymnastics fever, a made-for-TV movie about famed Romanian gymnast Nadia Comanici was broadcast in June 1984. We didn’t have the internet, we had encyclopedias, the newspaper, and made-for-TV movies. 

Whom amongst us is not rapt by gymnastics, especially women’s gymnastics? I can run, not really, and sort of jump, not really, and swim, but not like that, and throw things, not as well, and I don’t ski or surf but other people do, and I’ve played basketball and volleyball and soccer, certainly not that well or even a fraction visible by a NASA telescope, but, gymnastics? Sure I’ve tumbled and done a cartwheel and have stood upright on a balance beam, but the rest of it? It’s captivating and incomprehensible.

For so long, the general consensus was that female gymnasts were best before puberty, the body a time bomb for coaches to navigate. And by navigate, I mean, don’t deal with and move onto the next body. Since the Eastern Bloc countries dominated the sport, their paradigms designated success. Commentators talked about how the coaches would pick girls from kindergartens and make them gymnasts for the state.

Mary Lou Retton was sixteen years old, 4’9” and 94 pounds in the summer of 1984, she says she was considered “the fat one” on the team. Her coach was infamous Romanian coach Bela Karolyi, who, with his wife Marta, defected from Romania in 1981. He had been Nadia Comaneci’s coach in Romania. Bela Karolyi was Nadia Comaneci’s coach in Romania, Comaneci was the first gymnast to ever score a perfect 10. I know this because I watched the made-for-TV movie, Nadia. Her uneven bars score read 1.0, the electronic screen couldn’t display 10.0.

Bela Karolyi was the coach of the Romanian team, then a communist nation. According to state surveillance of Comaneci after the Olympics, Karolyi was physically and emotionally abusive to the gymnasts, including his star. All that mattered to him were medals. “My gymnasts are always the best prepared in the world. And they win. In the end, that’s what matters.” Generally the talk was the younger the girls, they better they are, before growth spurts and hips. The nuance of discussing young girls’ bodies was not terribly subtle then in the public sphere. I doubt it has improved that much in certain circles in private. 

Sure, in the end all that matters is winning, unless you have an entire life to live afterwards. 

Dominique Moceanu of the 1996 “Magnificent Seven” was 14 years old at the Atlanta Olympics, Karolyi was her coach. She competed with a stress fracture in her tibia. During her balance beam routine, she landed on her head on the balance beam on the fourth backflip of her first pass. I remember the replay, how her neck crunched under the weight of the impact of her body. She did not fall off the beam, she held on, then continued her routine and nailed it. After her dismount, no one, no coach, no trainer, came up to her, certainly not the case when the routine goes as planned. She went to the US bench and sat alone. No one checked her out. 

Moceanu’s teammate, Kerri Strug, 18 years old, in the same Olympics, is famous for performing the vault that clinched the gold for the US team. On her first vault, Strug lands awkwardly and jams her ankle. On her second vault, she executes it well, enough to beat the Russians for the gold. In between vaults, she asked if she needed to do it, if the team needed it. Karolyi said they did. At that moment, the US would have won without her second vault. Her injury, a third degree lateral sprain and tendon damage, made it so she could not compete in the individual all-around and event finals. 

Karolyi and his wife Marta defected to the US in 1981. They were able to expand and build on land they bought outside of Houston, calling it the Karolyi Ranch¹, where more and more gymnasts were drawn after Retton’s success in 1984 cemented their status. In 1988, he became the head coach for the US Olympic team, in 2001 the ranch became the national training center, and then in 2011, the Karolyi Ranch was named the US Olympic Training Site by the US Olympic Committee.  

In 1996, Larry Nassar was named team doctor of the US Women’s Gymnastics Team, a position he held until 2014 when he was convicted for sexually abusing female athletes. He is currently serving 60 years in a federal prison on child pornography charges, to be released on January 30, 2068. Then he will serve another 40 to 175 years in the state prison in Michigan for sexually abusing children. These children were the athletes whose care he was managing. He violated over 500 athletes, some of them at the ranch, including gold medalists Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Simone Biles. No charges were filed against the Karolyis after years of abuse allegations, they just disappeared after a trip back to Romania. 

In 1997, the International Gymnastics Federation raised the minimum age for Olympic eligibility to 16, to protect the athletes. The general consensus was this would be a death sentence for the sport, that only the small, young bodies could achieve greatness. For so many athletes, the Olympics were a one and done, especially after the age change. Listening to commentators over the years, I can’t help but notice how pervasive misogyny and ageism is in our society. In one of Mocineau’s beam routines, the male commentator says “I think there’s a grown-up in that 70 pound body.” He later exclaims “You know, maybe she’s too young to realize the pressure.” What a fucking dolt. Of course she knows the pressure she is under, she’s under the pressure of Bela Karolyi’s coaching every day. She filed for emancipation from her parents before when she was 17, saying they took $4M of her earnings to build a gym, accusing them of abuse and exploitation, along with accusing the Karolyis of abuse, well before anyone else did. I imagine Mocineau’s understanding of pressure far exceeded the commentator. 

Since 1997 and the age minimum, I’ve noticed a slow transition over the years, both the age and the longevity of the gymnast increasing in number. This age minimum, and the change it requires for coaching and its approach to body and mind, has created more agency for the athletes. The athletes Nassar abused filed a suit against the FBI for being slow to investigate the doctor, despite numerous allegations against him. The Justice Department reached a $138.7 million settlement. Publicly testifying about being sexually abused is no small thing.

When I watch Simone Biles compete, I can’t help but think about how applied knowledge must inform her, how much wisdom she herself has gained through the years about how her body and mind function best. Biles had the strength to drop out the Tokyo Olympics to so much vitriol from the press and public. There is no greater public stage to admit such a personal struggle. And she stood by it, by her decision. She created her own agency in regards to her health, her self. Jordan Chiles is 23 years old, she counts Biles as her mentor, who showed her how to keep going in the sport she thought she was done with. Biles role as a mentor can only make stronger athletes with greater longevity and more say in the decisions that dominate their lives.

The totalitarian approach and narcissist styles of both Bela and Marta Karolyi were dangerous, hurting the children whose care they were charged. The gymnasts were disposable, exploited for their skills and determination. This country ate up how they coached, because care and integrity is ok, but winning is the best and medals rule. Any scrutiny towards them came too late. Sure those athletes had their moment in the spotlight, but then what? Because there’s a whole life to live after that, and feeling like you peaked at 14, 16, 18 is a tough way to go.

There’s no telling how this sport and the athletes will continue to flourish, and there’s no discounting just how vital it is for people to have a say over their bodies and their lives, to have choices, to be self-determined. It’s a change, not just in sport, but in how we consider ourselves, and each other. All you have to do is look at the first all Black podium for Women’s Gymnastics, Jordan Chiles won bronze², Simone Biles silver, and Brazilian Rebecca Andrade took the gold. Chiles and Biles both bow to Andrade, who has spent her career competing against Biles, always handing her the flowers. She holds out her hands to both of them. 

1. Nothing good happens on a ranch.

2. As I type this, Chiles was stripped of her bronze, the committee says her coach contested 4 seconds too late to reconsider her score. US Olympic officials are appealing. https://apnews.com/article/2024-olympics-gymnastics-jordan-chiles-d246c9d544faf9dfb44185ae3661e869