Word: retton
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...appealing collection of young American gymnasts, most stirringly Mary Lou Retton but also some wondrous men for a change, have given the Olympic Games what they wait for every four years?and sometimes eight?the gift of renewed youth. Last week in Los Angeles, a pretty and pleasant time, occasionally even captivating, the U.S. began swimmingly against most of the world, less the Soviets and East Germans of course, maybe too successfully for some tastes. After so many choruses of our national anthem and chants of "U.S.A.!," the impulse might be to wish for someone else to win, just...
Everyone stood up for Retton, a resilient child and a killer competitor of 16, whose 92 Ibs. of forthright chunkiness rises scarcely 4 ft. 9 in. from the preposterous base of a pair of size3 feet. Among her best reflexes is a snappy smile, but the hunter's look with which she fixed Rumanian Ecaterina Szabo, 17, was memorable too as fortune started Szabo off on her best apparatus and Retton on her worst. They proceeded inversely until Szabo dismounted the parallel bars with relief and Retton came to the vaulting horse, her pet pony. A loud bear, Bela Karolyi...
...night before the finals in women's gymnastics last week, Mary Lou Retton, 16, lay in bed at the Olympic Village, conjuring. It was an established ritual for her, no different from the imaginings of a hundred other nights. "I see myself hitting all my routines, doing everything perfectly," says Retton. "I imagine all the moves and go through them with the image in my mind." The following day, the spunky Retton led the U.S. team through a stylish and rousingly high-flying performance. The Americans could not quite match the lavishly talented and seasoned Rumanian team, but their...
...they left the arena, Retton had sneaked a close look at the Rumanians' medals, and told U.S. Women's Coach Don Peters, "Theirs are shinier than ours." Two nights later, everything that glittered was around Retton's neck. She won the gold medal in the all-around championship, the most coveted prize in gymnastics, since it marks the winner as the finest gymnast in the world. It is the crown Nadia Comaneci once wore, and Lyudmila Tourischeva, and which Olga Korbut, for all her charm, was too limited an athlete to achieve. Retton sealed her claim...
...usual, the competitors are rallying. "I wasn't going to the Olympics just to beat the Russians," said U.S. Gymnast Mary Lou Retton. "I was going because it has always been my dream." A good and brave line is managed by Lorraine Moller, the marathoner from New Zealand, who reasons, "They will be the only Olympics I might ever "know. Would you cancel your birthday party because a few relatives won't show?" American Gymnast Mitch Gaylord believes, "They will still be the Olympic Games. There's nothing bigger than that." As Naber says, "There are still...