Free Republic

Mary Lou Retton, the first American woman to win all-around gymnastics gold at the Olympics, is "fighting for her life" with a serious illness, according to a fundraiser posted by her daughter. McKenna Lane Kelley said her mother has "a very rare form of pneumonia" and is "not able to breathe on her own." She said Retton has been in the ICU for more than a week and is not insured but declined to go into further details. Proceeds from the fundraiser will reportedly go to Retton's hospital bills. Kelley is the second of Retton's four daughters and was a...

This was the last gasp of amateurism at the Olympics. Most of the nations who’d already made a sham of the ideal stayed away, the Soviet-bloc boycott of the 1984 Games of Los Angeles allowing the rest of the world to gather one last time under the Games’ original ideology, unburdened by the state-sponsored automatons of Moscow and East Berlin and Prague. By 1988, those countries would be back. By ’92, everyone else — starting with the U.S. jumping in gleefully with both feet — would welcome professionals, too. But in ’84, it was still possible for an athlete to...

Retton, who won the Olympic individual all-around gold medal at the 1984 games, is battling a "very rare form of pneumonia," her daughter wrote on a fundraising page.Mary Lou Retton, a former Olympic gymnast, is “fighting for her life” in the intensive care unit with pneumonia, her daughter McKenna Kelley said. Kelley shared the news on her Instagram Story Tuesday as well as a link to a Spotfund page dedicated to her mom. In a message on the fundraising page, Retton’s daughters wrote, “My amazing mom, Mary Lou, has a very rare form of pneumonia and is fighting for her...

Please access the enclosed Ann Coulter link and view list of athletes who support President George W. Bush.

To our fellow Americans: We have given much thought to the values and characteristics that make a great athlete. Our lives have been spent trying to run farther, push further, and jump higher than the person beside us, or across the field of our chosen sport. With years of training and exhaustive competition beneath our belts, we have identified the values necessary to compete and win--values like personal strength, determination, a sense of fair play and faith. The same qualities that make a great athlete make a great President--the determination to do what is right, regardless of the latest polls,...