{"id":358174,"date":"2024-01-07T19:26:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-07T20:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=358174"},"modified":"2024-01-07T22:02:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-07T22:02:01","slug":"olympic-icon-breaks-silence-on-life-threatening-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=358174","title":{"rendered":"Olympic icon breaks silence on life-threatening battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

O\ufefflympics<\/a> legend Mary Lou Retton has opened up on her serious battle with pneumonia, revealing doctors were considering placing her on life support.<\/p>\n

The 55-year-old former gymnast was hospitalised with the illness in October and has remained out of the public eye during her recovery, but will give her first interview with a US breakfast TV show on Tuesday (AEDT).<\/p>\n

Retton won five medals at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles,\ufeff cementing herself as an Olympics hero in America, before retiring from competition in 1986.<\/p>\n

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In a sneak peek clip from her interview, Retton revealed the severity of her pneumonia battle, with the Olympian diagnosed with a rare form of the illness and continuing to use a portable oxygen apparatus to assist her breathing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\ufeff"This is serious, and this is life, and I'm so grateful to be here," she said.<\/p>\n

"I'm very private and to come out and talk about it \u2026 usually my interviews are, 'Oh yes, it felt great to win the Olympics!'.<\/p>\n

"I am blessed to be here because there was a time when they were about to put me on life support."<\/p>\n

Retton's battle was initially made public by her family, who have since raised $670,000 in their bid to support her recovery and continued medical bills.\ufeff<\/p>\n

She was joined by her eldest daughter, Shayla Schrepfer, for the emotional interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O\ufefflympics legend Mary Lou Retton has opened up on her serious battle with pneumonia, revealing doctors were considering placing her on life support. The 55-year-old […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":358176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=358174"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358177,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358174\/revisions\/358177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/358176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=358174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=358174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=358174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}