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Mary Lou Retton<\/a><\/strong>, the first American woman to win all-around gymnastics gold at the Olympics, is \u201cfighting for her life\u201d with a serious illness, according to a fundraiser posted by her daughter.<\/p>\n McKenna Lane Kelley<\/strong> said her mother has \u201ca very rare form of pneumonia<\/a>\u201d and is \u201cnot able to breathe on her own.\u201d She said Retton has been in the ICU for more than a week and is not insured but declined to go into further details.<\/p>\n Proceeds from the fundraiser will reportedly go to Retton\u2019s hospital bills.<\/p>\n Kelley is the second of Retton\u2019s four daughters and was a gymnast herself at LSU from 2016 to 2019.<\/p>\n Retton became an American icon at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where she won all-around gold, plus silver in the team and vault events and bronze in floor exercise and uneven bars.<\/p>\n In addition to being the first all-around gold for an American woman, it was the first by any American competitor since Julius Lenhart<\/strong> in 1904. It should be noted that Lenhart represented the United States but was an Austrian citizen competing through an American gymnastics club in the modern Olympics\u2019 early days.<\/p>\n The long-awaited victory was particularly dramatic, as Retton, who had undergone knee surgery only five weeks prior, entered her final rotation needing a perfect 10 on the vault to beat Ecaterina Szabo<\/strong> of Romania. Retton stuck her landing to win gold. She then repeated that feat.<\/p>\n