Bela Karolyi, the embattled yet successful gymnastics coach who helped young women vault to the highest levels of the sport in the Olympics, has died at the age of 82, USA Gymnastics has announced.

Karolyi developed USA Gymnastics into a global force, but his legacy would be tainted by the Larry Nassar scandal

Bela Karolyi and his wife Martha defected to the U.S. in 1981, and over the next 30-plus years, became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy.