Márta Károlyi

Márta Károlyi (née Erőss; Hungarian: Erőss Márta; born August 29, 1942) is a Hungarian-Romanian gymnastics coach and the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics. She and her husband, Béla, are ethnic Hungarians from Transylvania, Romania, and trained athletes in Romania, but defected 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 Mary Lou Retton, Betty Okino, Kerri Strug, Teodora Ungureanu, Phoebe Mills, Nadia Comăneci,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.