New life worked out fine for Bela and Marta Karolyi

An interesting story about Bela Karolyi defecting to the US and going on to become a well known Olympic gymnastics coach. DP

By John Smallwood, Philadelphia Daily News, Daily News Sports Columnist

philly.com: BELA AND MARTA Karolyi did not know what to expect when they made the bold move to defect to the United States in 1981 and ask for political asylum.

They just knew that facing the unknown was likely better than dealing with the known in their native Romania.

A quarter of a century ago, Romania was a socialist state, part of the Eastern Bloc and allied with the old Soviet Union. It was a place where an independent and strong-willed personality like Bela could easily fall into disfavor despite being one of the world's pre-eminent and most recognizable gymnastics coaches.

And by 1981, after several highly public displays of unhappiness at international meets, including the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow when he basically argued that his team was being cheated, Bela Karolyi was about as unpopular with officials in the Romanian Gymnastics Federation as he could get.

"Actually, I held up the Olympics for the sport of gymnastics for about 24 or 25 minutes by arguing with officials and trying to reset the truth on the floor for the kids," Karolyi, 67, reflected as he sat for lunch yesterday at a Center City restaurant. "I made a bad name for myself for disturbing the great Communist Olympics.

"They were already upset by the [United States led] boycott, and then to have a so-called insider from a socialist country coming in and calling them cheaters and liars, they could not stand it.

"I was young and hotheaded. I never thought about the consequences I was going to face later on."

During a tour of North America, the Karolyis decided to start a new life in the United States.
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