Olympics: Sprite Fight

Which of the extraordinary tumbling pixies will become the Seoul sweetheart?

Olga. Nadia. Mary Lou. Their first names alone are the way we remember them, the last names seemingly too tedious and weighty for ones so petite. Olga Korbut was the scrawny, pig-tailed brunet at the 1972 Munich Games who, with her double-jointed contortions and infectious grin, convinced us that human hearts beat within the bodies of robotic Soviet athletes. Four years later at the Montreal Games, it was a long-limbed brooding Rumanian, Nadia Comaneci, who stole hearts by posting the first perfect 10s ever in Olympic gymnastics competition. Then in Los Angeles in 1984, American Mary Lou Retton bounced + into...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!