Women's Gymnastics

[ceebeegee]

I am a huge women's gymnastics fan, and in the wake of the most recent US National Championships (which Nastia Liukin won), have been inspired to look up favorites past. I found Mary Lou Retton's page on Wikipedia. MLR has something of a controversial rep among gymnastics fans, believe it or not. On the bright side: she won the Gold medal All-Around, something no other US woman had done, and she won medals in the event finals (and helped lead the US team to the silver). She's also a very good sport and very positive. But on the liability side: she won in a boycotted Olympics in the US (it is almost certain that if the Russians had participated, she would not have won) so to some her victory is qualified. Also some critics think she lacked artistry and ushered in the area of "pixies doing tricks" as opposed to women showing more artistry on the floor and the beam. This view is silly, IMO--Olga Korbut in '72 was definitely the first gymnast to de-emphasize artistry in favor of athleticism. She threw some amazing skills, like the one during uneven bars where she'd stand on the top beam and doing a back flip and catch the top beam again. I have a video of Elena Mukhina doing that element in '79 and your heart stops. FIG finally banned the skill, probably because it looks so dangerous. Anyway, Olga Korbut made such a splash with her athleticism, which is why she's so famous--she's not truly one of the greats of the sport, as she never won an Olympic or Worlds AA title. And her kind of gymnastics is why female gymnasts started trending younger and skinnier. Before Olga Korbut, the female gymnasts were all relatively older women (with BREASTS) doing ballet, basically. Olga strated the trend, and Nadia was the perfect realization of it--tiny, nothing but muscle, absolutely no fear, and flawless. Nadia's artistry was that of the perfect physical specimen, the athlete executing her routines perfectly. Mary Lou capitalized on that trend, because she was an athlete, tough and muscular, but she didn't start it.

Anyway, I found something interesting on MLR's wikipedia page:

During the 80's, at the height of her popularity, she was an outspoken supporter of the Reagan Administration in the United States. She appeared in a variety of televised ads supporting Ronald Reagan. Though still an outspoken Christian and conservative, she has since denounced Reagan and his years in office stating that had she "known the impact his inability to address the AIDS epidemic would have" she would "never have given him (her) support."

Well, good for her. Way to think for yourself, and be able to say "I made a mistake." So many conservative Christians just love him (God knows why--he was only nominally a Christian, and rarely went to church) and I find her ability to reverse a stand refreshing.