An acquaintance named Les Sasvari, an expatriate Hungarian coach living in the U.S., helped pay their way to Los Angeles. Although their defection made the newspapers, no one in the gymnastics community contacted Karolyi, and after the initial swirl of publicity, he and Martha were left to fend for themselves. They carried her bear with them into the street.Īfter a week, with the help of other èmigrès, he and Martha contacted the State Department and applied for official asylum, which was eventually granted. We had even bought a big stuffed bear to bring home to Andrea." Andrea, their seven-year-old daughter, had stayed behind in Romania with an aunt, and now Bela and Martha had no way of contacting her. "We just decide, suddenly," says Karolyi. It was the beginning of a wrenching odyssey. On the last day of the tour, March 29, accompanied by team choreographer Geza Pozsar, they walked out of their hotel and disappeared into the crowded streets of New York City. Fearful of reprisals upon their return to Romania, Bela and Martha did just that. The leader of the Romanian gymnastics federation, Nicolai Vieru, made it clear to Karolyi that the coach was suspected of intending to defect. Secret police accompanied the delegation, clumsily disguised as masseurs and journalists, and Karolyi found himself under increasing pressure to toe the party line. The breaking point came in March '81, during an exhibition tour of the U.S. In 1981, the Karolyis embarked on what was intended to be an exhibition tour of the United States before a planned return to Romania, but (ostensibly) on a whim, the Karolyis (along with companion and choreographer Geza Pozsar) decided to defect and seek asylum in the United States due to increasing political pressure in their native Romania: In their native Romania, the couple coached legendary gymnast Nadia Comăneci, who at the age of 14 achieved the first perfect 10 gymnastics score in Olympic history during the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. The circumstances under which Bela and Marta Karolyi emigrated from Romania to the United States are well documented but possibly unfamiliar to younger audiences. The tweet clearly had impact (it was shared by tens of thousands of users), but its claims were misleading, The above example references Donald Trump's campaign slogan ("Make America Great Again") and appears to critique his controversial stances on immigration, suggesting that immigrants of (initially) dubious status have been responsible for years of American success at the Olympics. On or around 11 August 2016, popular Twitter account retweeted a subsequently viral iteration of the claim the Karolyis emigrated to the United States under less than legal circumstances: The Romanian couple were also subjects of rumors claiming that they were "illegal immigrants" to the U.S.: in 1981 and have helped transform the American women into the world's best. They first rose to prominence in their native Romania where they trained the country's first wave of superstar gymnasts, including Nadia Comaneci, who scored the sport's first perfect 10 and took gold at the 1976 Olympics. She and her husband, Bela, have been towering figures in the world of gymnastics since the 1970s. It's fitting that the current team has nicknamed itself the "Final Five," a tribute to leader Marta Karolyi, 73, who is stepping down after the Rio Games. But they have now captured the team title at the last two Olympics, and American women have won the individual all-around at the last four Summer Games. The American women didn't win their first team gold until 1996. women’s gymnastics team during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, coach Marta Karolyi and her husband Bela were the subjects of frequent headlines, including a 12 August 2016 profile that credited them with transforming the United States' global standing in the gymnastics world: Amid an impressive series of performances by the U.S.
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