Young female gymnasts have provided a compelling image of the Olympics ever since the elfin Olga Korbut first charmed the world in 1972, age 17. Small, light , flexible, fearless - these children compete with charm, charisma and incredible determination, demonstrating skill and courage beyond that of any ordinary person.
Yet there was a darker side to this phenomenon that has been hiding in plain sight for decades - the frightening cost of preparing these athletes, many of whom begin hard training at the age of 6 or 7, and some of whom become famous well before their first Olympic exposure. Some little girls chose gymnastics for themselves and continue with it, joyfully, supported by skilled and far sighted adults. Others are diverted along rocky pathways towards experiences they were too young to chose. When little girls become puppets, there is always a puppet master - good, bad or ugly.
Little girls will do anything to please people in authority, even if those people are unkind and unfair. In the absence of parental or friendly support, their cries for help go unheard. Gold medals mean money, status, fame. First place in an Olympic competition can symbolise a victory of one country over another. Priorities can be cruelly distorted by pressure from government, administrative organisations and sponsors. Little girls have little chance of standing up to big, powerful adults with voices louder than their own. Little girls who find themselves fighting grown up games, alone, will mostly lose out, and the consequences can be horrible.
If these young women had been older, more experienced, more knowledgeable about the world, would they have been less likely to be picked on by predators? Would they have been more likely to confront the bizarre assumptions of those who led their development in the sport?
The youth culture of gymnastics is powerful - health, self determination, dedication, discipline. Teamwork and the joy of achievement. Gymnastics is a positive phenomenon. But adults, corrupting the sport for their own means, have imposed an assumption on elite gymnastics - only the young can fly.
So, now for the purpose of this shared infographic. What do you think? Should gymnasts be allowed to compete at major international competitions at the age of 15 or 16, or would it be better to delay their entry into elite gymnastics and make them wait until they are 17 or 18? To give you a starting point, I'll post some information about the ages of our Olympic champions from 1952 to the present day. And at the end, I'll post my reflections.
Simona Amanar, born 1979, won the gold at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Her international career began at the China Cup in 1993, where she finished in third place AA.
The inimitable Simone Biles, 2016 Olympic champion, looks set to win another gold medal in the 2020+1 Games at the age of 24. She was AA world champion at the age of 16.
My opinion. As Geza Poszar has said, the abandonment of compulsory exercises by the FIG was a tragedy for gymnastics. Compulsories put a brake on the development of too much difficulty in the optional exercises; they made sure that a gymnast could only win world and Olympic medals if she had mastered all of the basics to the highest degree of precision and artistry. Difficulty is over rewarded in the current WAG code; it is an encouragement to demand too much of an overstretched gymnast and increase the levels of stress in training.
At the same time, compulsories existed when Bela Karolyi was starving Emilia Eberle half to death in the late 1970s, when Betty Okino performed at the 1992 Olympic Games with a stress fracture in her back, and when Elena Mukhina broke her neck trying to make the Olympic team in 1980. Larry Nassar did not care that there were no compulsories in 2012, when he attacked Mackayla Maroney.
Eberle couldn't have spoken out about her treatment in Romania; no one would have listened and it would only have made things worse. Dominique Moceanu could tell her about that, based on what happened to her when she spoke out about the Karolyis in America in 2008. Ridicule, being labelled an attention seeker, being called a liar by those closest to her. No one wanted to believe Dominique.
Well documented allegations of ill treatment and abuse go back to the 1980s and 1990s. Did any of us listen? My self talk then was - this is gymnastics, they are talking about strict coaching, not abuse.
And in some cases, that is what it is. But there is an invisible line that must not be crossed, and it has been crossed, too often. It can happen in any realm of life where children must interact with and rely on adults. But gymnastics has hot housed that interaction and reliance and made it toxic. Abuse has become normalised. We are all responsible. Admin, judges, coaches, gymnasts, fans - we all have to change. Wherever we are in the world.
Was it in 2013? The last gymnastics competition I attended, the European Championships in Moscow. I finally began to feel uncomfortable about women's gymnastics. All those vulnerable young ladies being paraded around and put on a pedestal by those egos, closely watched and judged by elders to whom they had to defer and salute, performing routines which head coaches required of them regardless of whether they were happy and confident. Gabby Jupp damaged her knee ligaments in her first competition back after injury, writhing in pain and needing to be stretchered off. Afanasyeva came off the uneven bars sideways, landing on the cables in an undignified heap; showing no sign of pain, she then got up and continued. How can you just sit there in your seat while all this goes on, and act as if it is normal?
And some of them are so young, When I look at pictures of Mostepanova, Filatova, Shaposhnikova; Gwang Suk Kim; Silivas, Szabo, Gogean, I don't see teenage girls, I see nine year olds. Nine year olds need to go to school, be fed nutritious food, to play and be loved, to do their homework, have a bath and be put to bed early. They don't need to be Olympic standard gymnasts.
And that is why I think we should raise the minimum age to compete at senior level to 18. Because children should be allowed to be children. It won't happen everywhere, and it won't stop a determined abuser, but it's a start.
What do you think?
A Rewriting Russian Gymnastics production by Elizabeth Booth