Márta Károlyi facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Márta Károlyi
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Simone Biles receiving medal from Károlyi in 2012
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Márta Erőss
August 29, 1942 Székelyudvarhely, Kingdom of Hungary (now Odorheiu Secuiesc, Romania)
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| Occupation | Gymnastics coach |
| Known for | Romanian centralized gymnastics training system and coach to many world champions in Romania and U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | Andrea Károlyi Wise |
| Parent(s) | Júlia Bálint, Ernő Erőss |
Márta Károlyi (Hungarian: [ˈmaːrtɒ ˈkaːroji]; née Erőss; born August 29, 1942) is a Romanian-Hungarian-American gymnastics coach and the former national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics. She and her husband, Béla, are ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania, Romania, who trained athletes in Romania, including Nadia Comăneci, before defecting to the United States in 1981. Béla and Márta Károlyi have trained nine Olympic champions, fifteen world champions, sixteen European medalists and many U.S. national champions, including Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Betty Okino, Kerri Strug, Teodora Ungureanu, Phoebe Mills, Kim Zmeskal, and Dominique Moceanu.
Romania
Romania's famed centralized training program has its roots in the 1950s; the Károlyis helped develop the program further in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They established a boarding school in Oneşti, training young girls specially chosen for their athletic potential. One of the first students at the Károlyis' school was six-year-old Nadia Comăneci, who lived near Oneşti and commuted from home.
While Béla became a highly visible figure in Romanian gymnastics, accompanying the team to major competitions and often clashing with officials in the sport, Márta remained in the background, coaching and choreographing routines for some of the team's gymnasts.
In 1981, the Károlyis, along with fellow Hungarian-Romanian team choreographer Géza Pozsár, defected during a gymnastics tour in the United States. They were granted asylum and settled in Oklahoma. The couple's daughter, Andrea, joined them later.
1980s and 1990s
After their defection, the Károlyis established a gym in Houston, Texas. Béla's status as "Nadia's coach" quickly attracted gymnasts to the club, and by the late 1980s, the Károlyi gym had become the preeminent training facility in the United States. By 1990, Károlyi gymnasts were so dominant at national United States meets that journalists dubbed the top cluster of athletes the "Károlyi six-pack". At the 1991 World Championships, every single gymnast on the American squad was either a Károlyi athlete or trained by a former Károlyi club coach.
In the Károlyi coaching team, Béla was often known as the "motivator," while Márta was the "technician," applying her gymnastics savvy to help her athletes learn and perfect their technique, mechanics, and form. Béla accompanied the gymnasts to meets and was a highly visible presence to both the gymnastics community and the media; Márta remained in the background.
In 1996, Márta was chosen as the head coach of the U.S. women's team for the 1996 Olympics.
U.S. National Team Coordinator
After the 1996 Olympics, the Károlyis retired from coaching. However, three years later, Béla returned to the public eye when he was named the national team coordinator for the U.S. women's gymnastics team. His approach was protested and resisted by both the national-team gymnasts and their coaches, who, by the 2000 Olympics, were so frustrated and unhappy that they spoke about the situation publicly.
In 2001, on the recommendation of the U.S. national team coaches, the position was handed over to Márta. While she maintained some aspects of Béla's original program, her approach was different, and generally more acceptable to the gymnasts and their coaches. It also yielded impressive competitive results: between 2001 and 2008, American women won a combined total of 44 medals in World Championship and Olympic competition.
As coordinator, Márta oversaw all aspects of the women's national team. Among her duties were selecting athletes for competitions, determining apparatus lineups at the meets, and making recommendations about skills and routine compositions. The Károlyis' daughter, Andrea, was the nutritionist for the team.
At the 2012 Olympics, after Aly Raisman was given a score of 14.966 in the balance beam final, which put her a tenth of a point behind Cătălina Ponor of Romania, Károlyi requested a video review. As a result of the review, Raisman was awarded an additional tenth of a point for difficulty, allowing her to win the bronze medal on a tie breaker.
She retired from coaching in 2016, after the Olympics at which the US Women Gymnastics Team won nine medals (four gold, four silver, one bronze). Her last group of gymnasts called themselves the Final Five because that was Márta's last Olympics. Valeri Liukin was named as her replacement on 16 September 2016.
In 2021, the Karolyi ranch was sold to a lumber company.
See also
In Spanish: Marta Károlyi para niños
