Olympic gymnastics champion Mary Lou Retton has pneumonia and is in intensive care in a Texas hospital.

Retton's daughter, McKenna Kelley, shared Retton's condition in an Instagram post on Tuesday. Kelley said the 55-year-old Retton, who became the first American woman to win the Olympic all-around title, is “fighting for her life” and not able to breathe on her own.

Kelley started a fundraising campaign on Retton's behalf for medical expenses. Kelley wrote that Retton does not currently have medical insurance.

Retton was 16 years old when she became an icon of the U.S. Olympic movement during her gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Retton, who grew up in Fairmont, West Virginia, also won two silver and two bronze medals at those Olympics to help bring gymnastics — a sport long dominated by eastern European powers like Romania and the Soviet Union — into the mainstream in the U.S.

Retton, a mother of four, currently lives in Texas. She retired from competitive gymnastics in 1986 and did numerous commercial endorsements. She also made several film and television appearances, including a stint on “Dancing with the Stars.”

She and her husband, Shannon Kelley, divorced in 2018.

Share:
More In Sports
Covid's Impact on Pro Sports
Eric Mitchell, sports analyst and co-founder & head of media relations at Lifeflip Media joins Cheddar News to discuss how covid-19 is impacting pro sports.
Breaking Down Top Matchups for NFL's Week 17 Slate
Trysta Krick, Host of 'BetMGM Tonight' helps clear up a very crowded playoff picture by making selections for Week 17's top games while pointing to to an AFC West matchup for her lock of the week. Sponsored by BetMGM
Behind the National Women's Soccer League and Voyager Digital Multi-Year Crypto Deal
The National Women's Soccer League is partnering with Voyager Digital as its first-ever cryptocurrency brokerage in a multi-year deal. Marla Messing, interim CEO of the NWSL, and Steve Ehrlich, CEO of Voyager Digital, joined Cheddar to discuss benefitting the league and educating players and fans as a way of democratizing cryptocurrency. Messing explained that the players themselves will own half the assets as part of how the deal is structured. "My hope is, just in terms of the expectations of crypto over the long term, that I hope a lot of them are able to just let it sit there," she said. "And that one day this will be a nice retirement account for them."
Load More