Bela Karolyi, the larger-than-life coach who led Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton to Olympic gold while revolutionizing the sport of gymnastics, only to see his legacy destroyed by allegations of abusive coaching, has died. He was 82.
USA Gymnastics confirmed the news, saying he had died Friday. Comaneci paid tribute to Karolyi with a post on her Instagram, showing a carousel of photos that included a black-and-white photo of her with the coach on a walk in the woods. The caption read: ‘A big impact and influence in my life. RIP Bela Karolyi.’
‘Almost 50 years ago he guided me to the historic performance of the First Perfect 10 in the Olympics … and that changed my life for ever,’ Comaneci, who remained close with Karolyi, told USA TODAY Sports in a text message.
A cause of death has not been revealed, but Karolyi had been in poor health in recent years. He and wife Martha largely disappeared from public view following the abuse scandal that rocked USA Gymnastics. Former team physician Larry Nassar sexually abused hundreds of girls and young women, with some of the abuse occurring during national team training camps at the Karolyi ranch.
The Karolyis denied any knowledge of Nassar’s abuse but the scandal brought a reckoning with the sport’s toxic culture, including complaints that both Karolyis had been physically and emotionally abusive as coaches. In 2017, USA Gymnastics backed out of a deal to buy the Karolyi ranch and use it as a national team training center, effectively cutting ties with the couple.
‘Bela Karolyi was a man whose influence on my life and the sport of elite gymnastics is undeniably significant. He was a complex individual, embodying a mix of strengths and flaws that left a lasting impact on those around him,’ Dominique Moceanu, perhaps the most vocal critics of the Karolyis, said in a post on social media.
‘Anyone who has followed my story knows that my journey under Bela’s guidance as my coach came with immense challenges. His harsh words and critical demeanor often weighed heavily on me,’ she continued. ‘While our relationship was fraught with difficulty, some of these moments of hardship helped me forge and define my own path.’
Karolyi first rose to prominence in his native Romania. He and Martha were elementary school teachers in Transylvania when they began teaching their students gymnastics as a way to stay warm. Their performances delighted the townspeople and caught the attention of the government. Within a few years, they’d been put in charge of the national team.
Karolyi shook up the sport in 1976, when he arrived at the Montreal Olympics with a team of kids. Most elite female gymnasts in the 1970s were in their late teens or early 20s, but Karolyi’s team had just one gymnast older than 14. Romania won the silver medal, cementing for the next four decades the idea that gymnastics was a sport reserved for the young.
It was also in Montreal that the world was introduced to Comaneci, a dark-eyed, dark-haired sprite who scored the first perfect 10 at the Olympics. Comaneci would repeat that feat six times on her way to winning three gold medals, with Karolyi there to wrap her in a bear hug after each routine.
Though Karolyi was initially celebrated in Romania for the team’s success, he fell out of favor with the government four years later after criticizing the judging at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Karolyi was incensed, believing Comaneci had been robbed of a second gold medal, but Romanian officials were horrified that he’d embarrassed the Soviet hosts.
The following year, the Karolyis brought Comaneci and the Romanian team to the United States. While there, the couple learned they would likely be arrested upon their return. Despite not speaking any English, and with their young daughter still in Romania, they decided to defect, walking away from the team hotel in March 1981. (Their daughter would join them in the United States a year later.)
Karolyi spent the first few months in America doing menial jobs before reuniting with Americans he knew in the gymnastics community. Soon, he and Martha were coaching again —including a bubbly teenager from West Virginia named Mary Lou.
In 1984, Retton became the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic all-around title. Bela Karolyi was right alongside her, celebrating wildly and wrapping her in one of his trademark bear hugs.
For the next eight years, the Karolyis were the most prominent gymnastics coaches in the United States. A Karolyi gymnast won every U.S. all-around title from 1987 to 1992, and Kim Zmeskal in 1991 became the first U.S. woman to win the world championships.
The Karolyis retired after the 1992 Olympics but returned ahead of the Atlanta Games to coach Moceanu and Kerri Strug. The ‘Magnificent Seven’ would win the U.S. women’s first Olympic gold, but one of the signature moments still belonged to Karolyi, who carried Strug onto the medals podium after she’d badly injured her ankle while vaulting.
The Karolyis retired again after Atlanta. But in 1999, with the U.S. women falling behind Russia, Romania and China, USA Gymnastics convinced Karolyi to return and oversee an overhaul of the U.S. training system.
Unlike most other countries, the United States did not have a national training center. Instead, gymnasts gravitated to powerhouse gyms, often leaving home at an early age, and would only come together for international events. Karolyi created a semi-centralized system built around monthly national team training camps. Gymnasts no longer had to leave home in search of elite-level training because they and the less-experienced personal coaches were getting guidance from the national team staff each month. The camps also fostered a camaraderie, among both gymnasts and coaches, that previous generations had lacked.
But Karolyi’s blusterous personality and insistence that he knew best rubbed the personal coaches and gymnasts at the Sydney Olympics the wrong way, and he spent just one year as the national team coordinator. Martha Karolyi succeeded him and, under her direction, the U.S. women became an international powerhouse.
Despite Bela Karolyi’s love of the spotlight, he was content to step back and let Martha Karolyi run the U.S. program. Though she would occasionally consult him, he spent most of her 15-year tenure in the background, focusing instead on maintaining his beloved ranch, located in the middle of Sam Houston National Forest.
Though Martha Karolyi retired after the Rio Olympics in 2016, the couple planned to stay involved in the sport by having the ranch serve as the national team training center. But within months, the Nassar scandal and the scrutiny over the Karolyis’ coaching methods had made them pariahs in the gymnastics community.
Follow Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour
This article was updated to include video and new information.