Bela Karolyi, the controversial gymnastics coach who taught several Olympic champions, has died at the age of 82

Bela Karolyi, the gymnastics coach who transformed young women into champions and the United States into an international country, has died. He was 82 years old.

USA Gymnastics said Karolyi died on Friday. No cause of death was given.

Karolyi and his wife Martha have coached many Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the US and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.

“A huge influence and impact on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached him to gold in Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.

The Karolys defected to the United States in 1981 and over the next 30-plus years became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy.

Bela Karolyi helped guide Retton – all 16 – to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor at the 1996 Games in Atlanta after she Strug’s vault secured the American team gold. .

Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for the USA Women’s elite program in 1999 and put together a middle-of-the-road program that eventually turned the Americans into the gold standard of the game. It didn’t come without a cost. He was fired after the 2000 Olympics after several athletes spoke out about his tactics.

It wouldn’t be the last time Karolyi was accused of taking the lead and pushing his athletes too far physically and mentally.

During the Larry Nassar scandal of the late 2010s — when the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing gymnasts and other athletes with his hands while hiding medical treatment — more than a dozen. former gymnasts came forward to say the Karolys were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to go unchecked for years.

Nevertheless, some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, he and Karolyi were photographed re-enacting their famous scene at the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her to the podium after rolling on a badly sprained ankle.