Mary Lou Retton 1984 Olympics

[DAS603]

If I were a teenage boy, I would have loved to do some vaults and routines with her.

[Sessylius]

Mary Lou made gymnastics worth watching!

[brycehelmer]

She really didnt have stiff competition because Russia boycotted these olympics. Russia dominated this sport, and if they didnt boycott, Mary Lou would have stiff compettion and if she won, they she won with competition. To me, her only big competition was Sbazo(who in my opinion was on the weaker side of the romanian team). Mary Lou really didnt have stiff competition. To me, Carly Patterson was the first to win the AA all around title.

[Sessylius]

@brycehelmer Carly who?

Anyways, No whimpering about her competition, you only compete against whomever is there, period!

[TakeDetour]

The Italian American Goddess!

[iluvconverse25]

Mary Lou retton is one of my heroes!!!!

[MrSchnitzel321]

i luv mary lou retton! she is my hero

[personofworld]

ahahah love 0:25 disapointmentt

[rebchin123]

gotta lov bela

[shawnfan11]

wow shes talented i love her i love how its silent untill she lands and bela goes crazy what amazing historical moments

[NAGGERNUTZ]

She came back home the next day. The streets were lined with people all the way from the Bridgeport airport to downtown Fairmont. She rode on top of a fire truck. Anthony Chevrolet gave her a brand new Corvette convertible with the license plate "MARY LOU". It was amazing! The greatest thing to ever happen to Fairmont and the state of West Virginia.

[wolfysluv]

What set her apart from her artisty and extreme athletism in her day, was that she was a perfect 10 as a person and rep for the U.S. She's a cutey pie and gorgeous. She makes you feel so good to be around her, or talk to her. She was absolutely lovable and appealed to so many. Intelligent. Gracious. If you met her on the street you'd probaby be just as impressed if she wasn't a champion. CLASS act all the way.

[amdetata]

WOW! That was PREFECT!

[ThatRETTONboy]

Yes she's my dad Jerry Rettons Sister....

[gmpep3]

that would be like too cool!!!

[atl404shawty04]

He wasn't the coach. He was just their to show his support. I love him though. He's very entertaining.

[vontrappster]

Um, he was her personal coach. He was there doing more than 'showing his support'. Learn things.

[ThatRETTONboy]

That's my aunt for ya.... PERFECTION ... I get chills every time i watch videos of her.... Fairmont, WV.

[blazing64]

she's your aunt!? amazing!!

[TxTechRox123]

one word by the look on the Romanian's face...PWNED!!!!

[smsflippygirl]

were those guys yelling at Bela?

[KimZfan]

I believe Bela was supposed to stay behind a wall, and he crossed it to hug Mary Lou, and they were trying to tell him to stay back there.

[LittleCloserBoi]

That's just amazing. I can't imagine how that must feel.

[pattypeppermints]

yeah, i wish they had a drug that simulates that feeling!

[Godzilla1985]

I saw it live in 1984, I was 7 years old.

[smallvillefreek26]

what was it like to see it? i wish i could have.

[coachjkuhn]

It was awesome to see it, if your from WV like me it was even better!

[Swimmr4life7]

It is awesome to see it if your from WV like me and coachjkuhn. I personally know people who went to school with her and have her email and phone number and it is awesome. It is also cool to see personal pics of her from school with people that I am friends with now.

[sinjinthule]

MLR was one of my first sports idols. The others were Mike Schmidt (best third baseman who ever lived) & Charles Barkley (defined the POWER in power forward). Go figure.

But yeah, I think it was fair. Szabo was great in the apparatus finals. She was somewhat weak in team ops & all-around. The scoring system at the time hadn't caught up to the skills. The judges tried to be fair. MLR won it.

[ralucagymnast]

For me, this epitomises the strength of the human spirit: she knew she needed nothing less than perfection, and in the biggest arena in sport, with the whole world watching, she dug deep and found it within herself to be PERFECT when it mattered. Theres a lesson for us all: if you want something so bad it hurts, you will go the extra mile to achieve it. Staggering footage of a staggering moment.

[ValerianSoup]

I had cable in 1984.

[ValerianSoup]

A&E, CNN, The Disney Channel, ESPN, HBO, Lifetime, Cinemax, MTV, Nickelodeon, Showtime, TBS, The Movie Channel, USA Network and many others existed back then. Maybe your world was still 3 channels.....mine was about 32.

:Þ

[ValerianSoup]

Just to shed some light on these comments: They were meant for someone that said there was NO cable back in 1984, and it was only a 3 channel world. I don't know what happened to those comments, but that's why I stated that.

[AstringOfPoloponies]

Yes, there was cable in '84. I was living in L.A. at that time and my friend there was working for the Olympics at ABC-I think ABC had the telecast for the 84 Olympics. This clip brings back some great memories of L.A. in the 80s for me.

[admetric]

You'ld have to hate gymnastics to hate this video . I remember it well watching live. And as stated, it can't be relived the same way by simple viewing today. What a moment.

[dzzz80]

Hahaha!! So funny to hear Bela in the background!

[scrawneypaledude]

You folks are all missing the point. The reason M.L.R. won this meet was because was the judges were influenced by the "HOLYCRAPDIDYOUSEETHAT?" factor and gave her higher scores because of it. Take it in context. It's like the first time Mr. Bannister ran a mile under 4 minutes.

[scrawneypaledude]

No one had ever seen a 16 y.o. girl do a double layout or SPRINT to the horse like her and get that kind of distance and it freaked people out. No biggie now, and the moment is lost to all except the ones that witnessed it. You can't bring out the "first time" "wow" factor in video replays and it's too bad.

[scrawneypaledude]

Of course Szabo was a better all around classical gymnast, as were several others, but judges will always be influenced the first time they see something that different, and give someone "extra credit" so-to-speak, even though that's not in the rules.

[muffycat26]

Sorry but her gold medal in the AA was a joke. Szabo is by far the better gymnast. On vault and floor they are about equal, and bars and beam Szabo is far better. If this event was in Europe it would have been a blowout for Szabo. Szabo was the only gymnast here who actually was good enough to challenge the Russians who boycotted.

Funny how in event finals they went back to judging normal and compare how Szabo and Retton then do.

[KimZfan]

I think her AA gold medal was very fair. Mary Lou may not have excelled on beam, but Szabo had flaws of her own. Mary Lou was superior to Szabo on vault. There's really no denying that. Her vaults were more difficult, had better amplitude, distance, and had MUCH better form than Szabo. And I wouldn't say that Szabo was far better on bars considering she didn't even qualify to bars finals while Mary Lou did. At the very least, Mary Lou was more consistent on bars.

[muffycat26]

Szabo won vault finals over Mary Lou. Both were capable of scoring 10 on vault, and never scored lower then 9.9. I say they are comparable on vault.

Szabo was not flawed on beam, she was excellent and much better then ML on it. The reason Szabo did not make bar finals is she fell in the team event, she would have won or atleast easily pushed ML out of the medals in bar finals otherwise.

[KimZfan]

Muffycat, I was referring to Szabo having her own flaws in the All Around competition (not necessarily on beam). The reason I mentioned beam was in reference to Mary Lou's weakest event in the competition. I personally don't think Szabo deserved to win vault finals for reasons that I mentioned already.

[muffycat26]

OK well I dont have the event on tape, so I will try and review the performances here. I just meant in general Szabo was considered much stronger on bars and beam. If ML was stronger on vault, not by that much, and they were about the same on floor. So in general Szabo was another level as a gymnast, and for ML to win over her either judging was crooked or Szabo had to have some real problems. Szabo is the only one at LA who could compete with the boycotted Soviets.

[shane802]

Szabo fell on her dismount in Team Optional Bars! I repeat she fell on her dismount. MLR won fair and square everyone needs to get over it.

[gropious3]

Szabo had a bad dismount on bars during the compition. Sadly, Judges seem to remeber things like that even if you are "perfect" when later. MLR was consitent at the right time and that is generally what wins...

[discolando]

Damn, if you could only go back in time and correct that mistake. Oh well, I guess you'll just have to live with it.

[OperationPeaceBomb]

Szabo was not even close to being as good on the vault as Retton. In 1984, NO ONE was. Go look at ANY video, pre-1984, of ANY gymnast, and ANY vault. Compared to the speed with which Mary Lou attacked the horse, and the distance she got, most other gymnasts looked like half dead sloths bak then. That said, I too believe Szabo was the better all around gymnast, BUT, on the vault, M.L.R. had NO equal.

[OperationPeaceBomb]

And oh yeah, BTW...Szabo took steps and even had a "face plant" on her dismount from the bars, so how do you figure she was better?

[OperationPeaceBomb]

And I get so tired of hearing about the judges scoring. The head of the commitee was from East Germany, and if they were so biased and pro-U.S.A, why didn't they give M.L.R., the other American gymnasts, and team U.S.A. in general the whole ball of wax? If memory serves me, Szabo and the Romanians won just about everything except the AA.

[OperationPeaceBomb]

Retton won this meet, everyone that watched at the time and had knowledge of that eras gymnastics knows it, and everyone needs to get over it. It was 23 years ago for god sakes.

[sutonchef]

@muffycat26 THE FACT IS MARY LOU WAS AWARDED THE MEDAL AND DID THE SCORING WIN FOR THE GOLD. ONE MAY BE BETTER BUT IN THE END GOD DECIDES WHO WINS.

[runnerboy081]

@muffycat26 heres the thing about winning gymnastics. Its not who has the better record or the better reputation of being the best. Its all about who was better that day at that moment and on that day, Retton was better and earned her gold medal. She was better in the whole package and ended up on top. Szabo may on paper be better then Retton but was the best that night. I run track and the same goes. The winner is the fastest that day not the one with the better time prior to the race.

[MrHuggy05]

this just shows how much it sucks that difficulty and scoring have changed. a vault like this is amazing, but if i were using the scoring system that was used until 2006, it'd only be a 9.5, isnt that sad? and with todays scoring it'd be like... a 14 or 15 something. this tsuk-full is amazing, but now girls are doing (the last i heard) tsuk triples (some girl in china)... ridiculous. get it marrryyyy<33

[hindview]

the great Mary Lou Retton, BELONGS TO HISTORY!

[usabritcouple]

I will always remember this moment in history. Such an impact on me as a little girl. It still brings tears to my eyes to see such an amazing vault after such hard work, dedication, and discipline. Absolutely fantastic!

[gymnasticsforever17]

wow its funny you can hear her screaming when she runs over to Karolyi...

[scrawneypaledude]

I just can't get over this vault. NO ONE hit the horse with the power, speed, and authority Mary Lou did back then. What a little beast she was. All I can say is WOW!

[scrawneypaledude]

AWESOME!!! I't cool to see a different view of this vault on youtube finally. THANK YOU KIMZFAN!!! Got any more goodies of Mary Lou laying around?

[gw2012ogm]

and in slow motion also..some people thought this was a fluke but this is pure evidence that she won the gold deservingly! the image of her salute to the judges and 30 watt smile will forever be etched in gymnastics history. hmmm i wonder what she thinks about the current code of points?

[scrawneypaledude]

Being able to hear Karolyi in the background is kinda cool in it's own way, too. I recall hearing Retton talk about her favorite moment in the Olympics. She said it was when she went over to the big guy to get a hug and he was screaming like a maniac "FANTASTIC...YOU ARE THE OLYMPIC CHAMPION!!! Listen closely, you can hear him. What a spaz! Too cool.

[curiousavatar]

The thing that made this so monumental besides that fact that she got the 10 on her first vault, she had to make a second vault, even though she won, and it also turned out to be a 10 as well.

[MishuTaste]

Yeehaw!