On August 3, 1984, Mary Lou Retton scores a consecutive “10,” pulling a perfect vault after a dazzling floor routine at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Retton not only wins the all-around gold medal in women’s gymnastics, but becomes the first American woman to win an individual Olympic medal of any kind in the sport.
Born on January 24, 1968 in Fairmont, West Virginia, Retton gained prominence with victories in the American Cup in 1983 and the U.S. Nationals the following year. The 16-year-old Retton started the Olympic evening at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, leading all 36 gymnasts with a score of 39.525 points based on her performance in the previous team competition. But after a few shaky landings on the uneven parallel bars and balance beam, she trailed behind rival Romania’s Ecaterina Szabo by 0.15 points. Securing a “10” on her floor routine—beginning with an exceptionally challenging high double-back somersault in the layout position—narrowed the gap, edging Retton closer to the gold. But she was still down by 0.05. She needed one more “10.”
Retton soared and twisted through the air, executing a double Tsukahara (a challenging vaulting technique), before coming down for a flawless landing. She smiled. She jubilantly waved to the audience and ran to hug her coach, Béla Károlyi. One minute later, the scoreboard finally flashed “10.00.”
Then came another surprise, she vaulted again. “When she vaulted and got a 10, she didn’t have to do a second vault,” said acclaimed gymnastic coach Valorie Kondos Field. "She did [it] because she could, and I remember in that moment thinking, ‘This is what sports should be. It’s about playing the game. Not just about getting the medal and winning.”
What made Retton’s double “10” all the more phenomenal was that she earned them just six weeks after undergoing knee surgery. After placing first in the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials, Retton cracked a cartilage in her right knee after an exhibition routine, an injury that required arthroscopic surgery. Under the advice of her coach, Károlyi, she kept the surgery under wraps, instead focusing on recovery. “We did three months of rehabilitation in two weeks,” she finally revealed a decade later.
In addition to winning the all-around gold medal in women’s gymnastics, Retton won four more medals—two bronze and two silver medals. While she netted five medals at the Games, top athletes from Eastern Bloc countries were not competing since the Soviet Union and 14 of its allies had boycotted the 1984 Games.
