![]() ![]() There is the school of thought that says that if Sacramone hadn’t fallen on beam and the U.S. National Team Coordinator Martha Karolyi after a disappointing performance during the women's team final in Beijing Tuesday night.Again, we reiterate: Even if Alicia Sacramone had been perfect on balance beam and floor exercise in team finals, even if Chellsie Memmel could have the 0.2 back for her jam through to her dismount on bars, even if all the out of boundses hadn’t happened on floor, China still would have defeated the U.S. Not coincidentally, they display a much more modern form of femininity.Alicia Sacramone is consoled by U.S. ![]() ![]() Older college gymnasts, for instance, look happy and vibrant as they perform. Adult gymnasts train fewer hours and work in partnership with their coaches. Raising the age could limit the need for intense childhood training, especially if accompanied by restrictions on training hours.Ī minimum age of 18 would also position athletes to make informed decisions about their training and the sacrifices they are asked to make. If we re-imagine gymnasts peaking at an older age and scale their careers accordingly, they could have a much longer career in an adult body.įriday essay: from delicate teens to fierce women, Simone Biles' athleticism and advocacy have changed gymnastics forever “Trying to get in 10,000 hours before the age of 16 means a pressure cooker,” one coach explained.īut there is growing evidence puberty is not the end of gymnastics. Since Comăneci’s heyday, coaches and officials have assumed gymnasts need to master the sport before the onset of puberty. While other elite sports have young athletes, they tend to be the exception: women’s gymnastics has the youngest mean age of all disciplines at the Olympics. Maggie Nichols has become a strong voice against the abuse of athletes in the sport. Later specialisation would broaden gymnasts’ exposure to other life experiences, making it harder to accept the normalisation of abuse. Raising the minimum age for elite competition to 18 would offer a number of protections for athletes. The minimum age limit hasn’t been revisited since. In 1993, in a public relations push after a number of serious injuries and abuse allegations, the age was raised to 16 – coming into force in 1997. In 1981, the minimum age was raised to 15. Still, the average age of competitors continued to decline. In response to the growing number of adolescent gymnasts in international competitions, in 1971 the International Gymnastics Federation instituted its first minimum age rule, requiring gymnasts be 14 to compete internationally. This is compounded when gymnasts are trained to be docile and compliant.Īs Athlete A producer and former elite gymnast Jennifer Sey explains: “obedience was trained into us and we were terrified to speak up”. ![]() AP Photo/Susan WalshĬhildren and youth athletes may be more vulnerable to abuse than their adult peers, as the coach is positioned as an authority figure. A 1992 article in Sports Illustrated described Béla as “a ruthless Svengali, overworking his innocent young gymnasts for his own megalomaniacal needs”.īela Karolyi training Dominique Moceanu, then 14, in 1996. Soviet gymnast Yelena Mukhina blamed her paralysis in 1980 on coaches forcing her to train despite injury.Īllegations about the brutal methods of coaches Béla and Márta Károlyi – again implicated in Athlete A – go back to at least the early 90s. Frederick’s coach Richard Carlson has denied any wrong doing.Īmerican Olympian Kathy Johnson Clarke described being emotionally abused by a coach in the late 1970s. Korbut and Marcia Frederick, America’s first gymnastics world champion, allege their coaches sexually abused them in the 1970s. History of abuseĪbuse in gymnastics goes at least as far back as the child gymnasts. These success stories fostered the idea that gymnasts should be young to succeed: the sport’s femininity became entwined with girlhood. When 14-year-old Nadia Comăneci scored the first perfect 10 at the Games in 1976, she wasn’t just portraying youthfulness - she was a child. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |