Women’s gymnastics is finally aging. In fact, four of the five United States athletes who took team gold in Paris were women in their 20s attending their second Olympics. And after picking up the all-around gold, 27-year-old Simone Biles is the oldest winner in 72 years.
The last time a non-teenager took that title was in 1972. And even then, 20-year-old Soviet Ludmila Turischeva’s win was upstaged by the electric performances of her younger teammate Olga Korbut, aged 17.
Korbut would be the first in a line of “teenage pixies” who emerged after the women’s discipline took an acrobatic turn in the 1970s, favouring a smaller physiology and younger athletes.
The media, ever enamoured with prodigious children, fuelled an enduring cultural fascination with these gymnast wunderkinds.
Young athletes, big pressure
Girls’ acrobatic feats were often seen as charming play or superhuman acts, instead of the product of intense labor undertaken by children.
By the late 1990s, however, journalist Joan Ryan’s book, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, raised significant questions about the treatment and disposable careers of girls in
At the 2011 American Cup, when Mustafina made a competitive decision against her coach’s advice that didn’t work out, commentators treated it like a cautionary tale.
It was as if autonomy and self-possession were out of place in a sport for little girls.
Then, in 2016, came the sport’s greatest reckoning.
A torrid history of abuse
The Larry Nassar sexual abuse case ignited waves of present and former gymnasts worldwide to speak out about the silencing, abuse and toxic training environments they’d endured.
Over the next few years, athletes recounted the cost of childhood sporting careers.
Coaches were investigated. Independent reviews were undertaken.
Australia, too, confronted its past. A former national coach was sanctioned.
An Australian Human Rights Commission review concluded a “win at all costs” culture created “unacceptable risks” to young athletes.
The national governing body, Gymnastics Australia, apologized to survivors of abuse.
Age is by no means the only factor in vulnerability to abuse, but research shows that age and international-level training are significant risk factors in forms of interpersonal violence.
Source: https://studyfinds.org/womans-olympic-gymnastics-is-finally-evolving/?nab=0
