Bela Karolyi, the embattled yet successful gymnastics coach who helped young women vault to the highest levels of the sport in the Olympics, has died at the age of 82, USA Gymnastics has announced.

Bela Karolyi, a controversial figure in the world of gymnastics, has trained a plethora of Olympic superstars, from Nadia Comaneci to Mary Lou Retton. Karolyi died at the age of 82 on5, 2024. Over the course of his career,

Bela Karolyi and his wife Martha defected to the U.S. in 1981, and over the next 30-plus years, became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy.