Mary Lou Retton, the retired gymnast and Olympics legend, has pneumonia and is “fighting for her life” in an intensive care unit, her daughter said on Tuesday. Retton has been hospitalized for more than a week with what her daughter, McKenna Lane Kelley, called “a very rare form” of the disease. She “is not able to breathe on her own,” Kelley said.
Kelley, a former gymnast at Louisiana State University, shared few other specific details about her mother’s condition in a statement to her Instagram Story on Tuesday. “Out of respect for her and her privacy, I will not disclose all details,” she wrote. “However, I will disclose that she [is] not insured.”
On a fundraising page set up to help with her mother’s medical expenses, Kelley asked for prayers, adding, “ANYTHING, absolutely anything, would be so helpful for my family and my mom.”
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Retton, 55, became one of the most famous and beloved athletes in the country after becoming the first American woman to win the all-around gold medal in gymnastics at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Despite having undergone a knee operation just five weeks prior to the Games, she scored a perfect 10 on vault in the final rotation.
Retton also won two silver medals—in team and vault—and two bronzes—in uneven bars and floor—at the competition. Her performance not only landed her on the front of a Wheaties box and earned her Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsperson of the Year” award, but also helped fuel the rising popularity of gymnastics. She retired in 1986 at what she once called “the ripe old age” of 18.
Following her athletic career, Retton worked as a motivational speaker and made a number of film and television appearances, cameoing on Glee, Baywatch, Naked Gun 33 ⅓: The Final Insult, and Scrooged. She also competed on season 27 of Dancing with the Stars.
She was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1997. Following her retirement, her hometown of Fairmont, West Virginia, named a road and park after her.
