The Most Successful Athlete at the 1984 Games

So here we are.  The Olympic Games are underway and now that the excitement of being able to watch anything and everything has dwindled somewhat it’s time for the serious business of picking what I actually want to watch.  One of my favourite Olympic sports is artistic gymnastics and my fascination with it started back in 1984.

The Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics in retaliation for the US boycott of Moscow 1980.  Of the Soviet allies, only Romania bravely defied the boycott and sent their team to the Olympics where they ended up an impressive 2^nd in the medal table behind the hosts.  One of the Romanian medals came in the women’s artistic gymnastics team event where they narrowly won gold, by a single point, over the USA team.  This rivalry set things up nicely for the All-Around competition, the most coveted prize for the best individual gymnast across all 4 disciplines.

Ecaterina Szabo

It was a classic East vs West encounter.  For the West - American Mary Lou Retton; for the East - Romanian Ecaterina Szabo.  Szabo was slim and graceful with a messy ponytail, blue eyeshadow and a serious expression whereas Retton was strong and powerful with fashionably short hair and an easy, winning smile.  Their contrasting styles made the contest all the more exciting and my 6-year-old self was firmly on the side of the Romanian.

Mary Lou Retton

In the absence of the Soviet gymnasts, including the famous Natalia Yurchenko, Szabo was the favourite for the title.  She was a Hungarian immigrant whose name was changed from Katalin to the Romanian Ecaterina by a communist regime keen to hide her ethnic origins and normally that’s the sort of story that makes you a crowd pleaser – plucky young immigrant from a brave defiant nation etc.  But this was Los Angeles, and American dreams needed to be realised:  there had never been an All-Around Olympic champion from outside Eastern Europe and it was Retton who was set to make history and capture the hearts of the nation. After trailing Szabo for the first two rotations, Retton gained a perfect 10 for the floor and then, propelled by the strong home support, she flung herself at the vault with amazing strength and gained another 10.  She beat Szabo to the All-Around title by 0.05 of a point and became America’s sweetheart and a household name.

Retton won 5 medals in total at the 1984 Olympics but, no, she wasn’t the most successful athlete of the games.  That accolade goes to…(drum roll)…Ecaterina Szabo.  After the disappointment of the All-Around competitition, Szabo picked herself back up for the individual apparatus finals where she won an impressive 3 out of the 4 – vault, beam and floor.  Add the gold from the team event and that’s a remarkable haul of 4 golds and 1 silver making Ecaterina Szabo the most successful athlete of the 1984 games (in 2^nd place, with 4 golds, was some bloke called Carl Lewis).

Ecaterina sorts her hair out