Health crisis for Mary Lou Retton

She's high on the list, but Romania did compete in LA, which gave her some worthy challengers. I can't remember if China was a thing yet in gymnastics.

I'm Olympic-dorking here. Some of the fields in weightlifting were just decimated by the boycott. A Chinese and Taiwanese lifter were on the podium in the same weight class, though. I want to say Greco-Roman wrestling was another one, which led to a gold medal for Jeff Blatnik, an American cancer survivor.

1984 was pretty bad, but 1980 was probably worse. The women's field hockey was won by a Zimbabwe squad that was just invited to make up the numbers, and it's probably not a coincidence that the men's 100 and 200 were both won by white guys (Allan Wells of Great Britain and Pietro Mennea of Italy).

 

He set the 2oo wr in 1979 and it stood for 17 years. It took Michael Johnson to break it.
I don't think it was a phony gold medal.

 

I probably should have blue texted that last part, my bad. (Though that 1979 world record was set at altitude.)

 

A white guy from Italy held the 200m record until Michael Johnson came along?

Holy shit.

 

McDonald's ate a lot of Big Macs during that promotion, thanks to the boycott. Recall one women's swimming race ending in a dead heat, so they had to pay out twice.

 

Obligatory response:

 

I’m gonna spit in every tenth burger.

I like those odds!

 

Every second of that was pure gold.

 

Well it's a commercial for life insurance so ...

 

I'm kind of shocked by the request for help with the bills and kind of not. After all, what kind of career could Retton have crafted once she was done competing? Speaking engagements? Random TV show appearances?

 

Skating coach?
Skate-center owner?

EDIT: Gymnastics, not skating. JFC, this post sucks.

 

Whatever other 54 year old women do?