The Connollys settled in Southern California, and Olga became a U.S. citizen. She went on to compete in the next four Olympics for the U.S. team — in Rome, Tokyo, Mexico City and Munich — although she did not win any more medals.
She and her husband had four children, all of them becoming athletes: Mark, a college basketball player and briefly a boxer; Jim, an outstanding decathlete and javelin thrower; and their daughters, Merja, a national team volleyball player, and Nina, a tennis player.
In addition to Merja and Jim, who are twins, she is survived by her two other children, Nina Southard and Mark Connolly, and three grandchildren. From 1959 to the early 2000s, Olga lived in Culver City, Calif. After that, she lived mostly in Costa Mesa.
She had been a medical student while winning gold in the 1956 Olympics, but she never returned to those studies. Instead, after her marriage, when not competing, she worked on environmental causes, became a personal trainer, sold mountaineering goods, lectured at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, coached discus throwers and shot-putters at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, and supervised athletic programs for preschool children and older people.
Olga, along with her husband, also enjoyed a measure of celebrity. She was the mystery guest on an episode of the game show “To Tell the Truth” in 1958, and the couple appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” warmly introduced by Mr. Sullivan and serenaded by Louis Armstrong.