Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

[jbjennings]

I was just watching the Olympics tonight and noticed that the little Chinese gymnasts (female) looked really young--way younger than 16. I also learned that 16 was the minimum age. Why?? Seems like if they can do it, why not let 'em. Not that the Chinese should be able to flaunt the rules if that's what they're doing.
I also notice that there aren't any older gymnasts. Is there an upper age limit? Why don't we see any 25 year old gymnasts. It seems like that with more experience, they would get that much better. Just watching, it almost seems like it's just the opposite. What's the deal? I'm sure there's a reason, but I'm never interested in it except in the Olympics so I don't know much.
Just curious,
JBJ

 

[Dunaruna]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

There is a 32 year old Russian competing in the gymnastics. I guess that the reason it is a young persons sport is that the body becomes less flexible with age.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

I wish we did see more 25 year old gymnast, but I am afraid they traditionally don't make it that long in the sport.

A minimum age of sixteen is needed for their own protection.

The damage done to a young persons body through years of excessive training can be extreme. When it is done at a age where the person involved, has in principle no choice but to follow the orders of the parents, coaches, and trainers, it should not be considered to be part of any sanctioned sporting activities.

By the time they are old enough to know what has happened to themselves, it is often to late.

Many of the countries in question use these kids like pieces of propaganda meat, to use, and dispose of at will.

I think a minimum age, is great, and should be raised.

You only have to look at the former female East German athletes to see what can go wrong. They were not the only victims of manipulating children for a countries sporting propaganda machines, but though the fall of the wall, unlike in many other countries, this information has leaked out to the public.

When East Germany collapsed and unified with West Germany (now just Germany) the doping files were found, doctors and sport directors were taken to court, and the sad, brutal East German doping stories became public. No medals however were adjusted by the IOC even though many of these women, were no longer women.

While it is still denied by most involved, the affected athletes are now coming forward and suing the state, their doctors, coaches, and trainers for the irreparable damage done to them as children and young adults. They had no choice, and unfortunately it continues today.

The use of illegal performance enhancers has been around, as long as sports have been around, and they will probably continue. Catching those using them - finding the cheaters - is an ever-evolving process.

Let little girls stay little girls, and enjoy a time innocence, that most of us enjoyed.

If they choose later in life to do so, then it is their choice.

This is how they were brought into the world ...

We don't want this to be the way they leave it ...

 

[Limited-Time]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

Seems to me I herd the competitors had to turn 16 in the year of the Olympics they were/are competing in......................and it seems waaaaaaaaaaaaay to young to me too.

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

yes there was a question about that, and of course they had the documents to prove it. any one with a computer, can create documents.

the reason it is such a young sport, they start these kids early,drive the hard, and by 25 they are worn out, and have bursitis, arthritis, just worn out.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

What about Nadia Comaneci who was 14 years old in the games in Montreal..... did the age rules change?

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

yes there was a question about that, and of course they had the documents to prove it. any one with a computer, can create documents.

the reason it is such a young sport, they start these kids early,drive the hard, and by 25 they are worn out, and have bursitis, arthritis, just worn out.

If you start their training at the age of three or four, which many of these countries do, when their young bodies are still developing, it is no wonder that at 18 they are suffering bursitis, and arthritis. By the time they reach 25, they have 20+ years of professional sports behind them and they are finished.

And yes, anyone can create documents, even me, the so called iboat mod proclaimed “gossip monger”.

But the documents in question aren't fabricated by me, nor were the athletes, or the test that they have been run on them in the ongoing court processes here. Those medical test I guess were also fabricated by someones computer, but that doesn't make them falsified.

It is a little hard to explain how a tiny country winning 0 medals one Olympics, goes to winning 60 in another, finishing just behind the U.S.A. and Russia. The size deference alone would make the common man like me wonder how they achieved that. That is, unless you consider the methodical system that was introduced to achieve this wonder.

Should you doubt the information in my post, and that of the German courts findings, maybe the PBS special from the documentary series called “Secrets of the Dead”, it was the one titled “Doping for Gold”, would be of interest to you. You can find it here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episode-home/doping-for-gold-2

I haven't seen it, I don't get PBS TV here, just the radio version I listen to occasionally on AFN.

I got the news from German newspapers. The serious ones like the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, not the boulevard press.

Like you said anyone with a computer can create documents, they can also use a search machine to find them, at least the ones now in the public domain. These main stream sources are readily available to anyone who would like to read more on the subject.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

They said last night that the Chinese girls were TAKEN from their parents at age three and put into training and only allowed to see their parents once a year. They pointed out one, I can't remember which, wanted to go home but her parents told her to stay in camp to help the family name.

In the back of my mind I was glad to see them win. I hate to think what they would have to go through had they lost.

 

[fishmen111]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

In the back of my mind I was glad to see them win. I hate to think what they would have to go through had they lost.

So true.

 

[jbjennings]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

Well,
What's been said definitely makes sense. I suspected that those little girls were probably training 6 days a week and didn't get to stay home with their parents. Did anyone see that documentary about the Mardis Gras beads "made in China"? There's some really sad stuff going on around the world. Kind of makes you want to make a special effort to do what you can to keep things like that from happening here.
I have to admit, I was really kind of happy for those little Chinese kids. They really looked happy and appeared to have deserved their medals. But I guess after the kind of stuff they've probably been through, it was inevitable they would win.
It certainly appears the IOC is pretty powerless to control that kind of stuff.
JBJ

 

[tommays]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

Well

What do you think goes on here ALL of are girls live with a FULLTIME trainer


My daughter started dancing at a young age and moved to a youth company in Chicago with a host family at 14 years old and did not move home again until she was allmost 18 (6 days a week)


She is now a Senior at UB Buffalo and all the girls she roomed with are still best of friends and still travel to see each other a few times a year for camping and other more normal stuff

 

[oops!]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

just a side note......

at younger ages the athlete does not have the body weight that a 20 or 25 year old would....so it is easyer to perform.......there muscles are a lot easyer to train to lift there body weight (100 lbs or less) than a 160 or 170 lb.

 

[JB]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

Don't let what they look like fool you.

When I started my junior year of high school in 1951 (the year I would turn 16) I was 5'2", weighed about 115# and sang soprano in the High School Glee Club.

A couple months later I had to show my birth certificate before they would let me take the test for my driver's license.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

Well

What do you think goes on here ALL of are girls live with a FULLTIME trainer


My daughter started dancing at a young age and moved to a youth company in Chicago with a host family at 14 years old and did not move home again until she was allmost 18 (6 days a week)


She is now a Senior at UB Buffalo and all the girls she roomed with are still best of friends and still travel to see each other a few times a year for camping and other more normal stuff

Hi tommays.

I don't think you could ever compare our training methods, to the examples I mentioned in my post.

The ones we see on TV are just the tip of the Iceberg, there are thousands that didn't pass the mustard so to say, and will never see the fame & fortune of the Gold Medal winners.

Rules have to be made because of the worst of the bunch, not the best.

They are there to protect the girls (as best as is possible) not lucky enough to have the top class training environment I am sure your daughter does or did.

Go ahead and be proud of her!

 

[tommays]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

All i can say is you REALLY need to visit a Ballet school and see how many young grils and boys are trying to live the dream (with stage parents)


My daughter used to go to high school at 7AM to 1 PM and have ballet class from 2PM until 9PM then home work till 12PM then 7AM start again


The pressure to make weight finnaly wore her down

 

[Limited-Time]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

All i can say is you REALLY need to visit a Ballet school and see how many young girls and boys are trying to live the dream (with stage parents)


My daughter used to go to high school at 7AM to 1 PM and have ballet class from 2PM until 9PM then home work till 12PM then 7AM start again


The pressure to make weight finally wore her down

Presumably it was your daughters CHOICE..............as well as HER decision to live with a host family...........at 14.......................Competing at 16 in the Olympics means those children have been training for YEARS at a level, pace, and discipline no child should be subjected to.

 

[SnappingTurtle]

Re: Ignorant about gymnastics and age limits, need help..

All i can say is you REALLY need to visit a Ballet school and see how many young grils and boys are trying to live the dream (with stage parents)


My daughter used to go to high school at 7AM to 1 PM and have ballet class from 2PM until 9PM then home work till 12PM then 7AM start again

The pressure to make weight finnaly wore her down

I know how hard they work tommays, that is why my “not so hidden” anger gets involved when posting on this subject. It is one thing if they make this choice themselves, it is another if the state makes it for them, and that at an age of three or four.

I went to a design school, small but good. It shared it's dorms with the Denver Ballet Troupe (http://www.nationalballetofdenver.org/). I didn't live there (had a small house closer to the school), but I really enjoyed their company.

None of us ever had any free time, but when we did ...

... sorry, I forgot we were talking about your daughter, and I am getting off the subject.