Béla Károlyi

Béla Károlyi (; September 13, 1942 – November 15, 2024) was a Romanian and American gymnastics coach of Hungarian origin. Early in his coaching career he developed the Romanian centralized training system for gymnastics. One of his earliest protégés was Nadia Comăneci, the first Olympic Games gymnast to be awarded a perfect score. Living under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, Károlyi frequently clashed with Romanian officials. He and his wife defected to the United States in 1981.

After their arrival in the United States, Béla and his wife Márta Károlyi were credited with transforming the coaching of gymnastics in the U.S. and bringing major international success. They were each a coach for the United States women's national gymnastics team, as well as national team coordinators for United States gymnastics at the Olympic Games. They have been severely criticized for their coaching style, which many gymnasts have called abusive. They claim to have been unaware that Larry Nassar, the national gymnastics team doctor who was convicted of sexual assault of minors, was assaulting young female gymnasts in their care at their Karolyi Ranch training facility in the Sam Houston National Forest in Texas. ''Athlete A'', a documentary about the scandal, is a 2020 film which covers the Karolyis and their ranch.

Károlyi coached many notable national, European, Olympic gymnasts as well as those from the World Gymnastics Championships including Nadia Comăneci, Ecaterina Szabo, Mary Lou Retton, Julianne McNamara, Betty Okino, Teodora Ungureanu, Kim Zmeskal, Kristie Phillips, Dominique Moceanu, Phoebe Mills, and Kerri Strug. He coached nine Olympic champions, fifteen world champions, sixteen European medalists, and six U.S. national champions. He was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1997. Béla and Márta Károlyi as a coaching team were inducted into the US Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2000. Provided by Wikipedia