Bela Karolyi Biography - Early Life In Romania, Recognition In Competition, Chronology, Awards And Accomplishments, Olympians, Dissatisfaction - SELECTED WRITINGS BY KAROLYI:
1942-
Romanian gymnastics coach
Visionary Romanian-born coach, Bela Karolyi, revitalized the field of elite women's gymnastics competition during the 1970s and 1980s. The sport, which was traditionally dominated by women in their late twenties, became a bastion of underage ingenues under Karolyi's watchful eye. By introducing very young girls to the sport and providing them with intensive training he introduced new displays of power and athletic movement to the traditional spins and aesthetic twists that were normally seen in competition and that were limited by the larger size and limited flexibility of older competitors. Karolyi added new leaps, flips, and contortions consistent with the lithe lightness of younger gymnasts.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY KAROLYI:
(With John Powers and Mary Lou Retton) Mary Lou: Creating an Olympic Champion, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986.
(With Nancy Ann Richardson) Feel No Fear: The Power, Passion, and Politics of a Life in Gymnastics, New York: Hyperion, 1994.
Additional Topics
Karolyi was born on September 13, 1942, in Cluj, Romania. His father, Nandor, was a civil engineer. Iren, his mother was an accountant and homemaker. Karolyi was the youngest of two siblings; his sister, Maria, became a civil engineer like her father, while Karolyi turned to athletic
Bela Karolyi
pursuits. As a teen he set national records in the hammer throw, learned to box, and was compet…
In an unconventional move, the Karolyis provided the most agile of the young girls between the ages seven and eleven with training in gymnastics. Although training in women's gymnastics at that time was reserved for older girls in their mid-teens, Karolyi's students made rapid strides in part because of their youthful bravado. The pre-adolescent girls took easily to learning to perfo…
At the Montreal Olympics in 1976, working with premiere choreographer Geza Pozsar, Karolyi brought 14-year-old Nadia Comaneci into the competition, where she stole the show with an uncanny series of performances. Karolyi's girls made history when they took a silver medal in the team competition for the first time in Romanian history. Overall it was Romania's first Olympic medal since…
Karolyi was neither consulted nor advised of the team's movement in advance. Highly offended and upset at losing his best students, he shut down the school at Onesti and returned to the Vulcan region where he established a new facility at Deva in early 1977. Karolyi's new students won the Romanian championships in October of 1977, and in 1978 they beat the Russians again at the Frien…
In 1981 the Karolyis along with Pozsar, their choreographer of seven years, were dispatched with the national team to tour the United States in an exhibition that was guaranteed to raise a minimum of $180,000 for the Romanian Gymnastics Federation. When the exposition drew to a close, a midday flight departed from New York City on March 30, returning with the gymnasts to Romania. Karolyi was not o…
Geza Pozsar was born in Romania around 1950. He spent his early years in Cluj, the hometown of Karolyi. As choreographer and coach of elite gymnasts, Pozsar was instrumental in bringing Olympic medalist Nadia Comaneci to the podium. On March 30, 1981, he was among the trio of defectors that included Bela and Marta Karolyi who requested political asylum in the United States. Along with his wife and…
Just prior to his September 1982 buyout of the Houston gymnasium, Karolyi met a young gymnast named Mary Lou Retton at the Junior Nationals in Salt Lake City, Utah. He invited her to come to Houston to train at his gym. She departed from her home in Fairmont, West Virginia, and arrived at Karolyi's on New Year's Day. Less than three months later—in March 1983—Retton com…
Address: Office: RR 12 Box 140, Huntsville, TX, 77320-9812. Unable to resist the lure of Olympic competition, Karolyi returned to coach the U.S. women's team that won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996. As the team competition came to a dramatic conclusion that summer, he swept an injured gymnast, Kerri Strug, from the floor as she completed her final vault despite a seriously sprained ankle. …
Unable to resist the lure of Olympic competition, Karolyi returned to coach the U.S. women's team that won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996. As the team competition came to a dramatic conclusion that summer, he swept an injured gymnast, Kerri Strug, from the floor as she completed her final vault despite a seriously sprained ankle. The gesture by the coach left onlookers with a lasting impre…
Jackson, Kenneth T. and Arnold Markoe, The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives: Sports Figures, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. Karolyi, Bela, John Powers, and Mary Lou Retton, Mary Lou: Creating an Olympic Champion, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986. Newsweek, August 5, 1996, p. 40. Publishers Weekly, March 28, 1994, p. 76. Sports Illustrated, April 3, 2000, p. 88. …
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