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To the widespread delight of the determine skating fandom, the game is elevating its minimal age restrict in an effort to scale back its emphasis on baby athletes in excessive degree competitors. The followers need it, and the purpose of making situations the place baby athletes aren’t compelled into excessive degree competitors at absurdly younger ages is extensively supported.
However regardless of the ISU taking this crucial step in attempting to boost the bar for its youngest rivals, I do really feel a phrase of warning is required and that the determine skating group ought to notice the teachings realized from gymnastics within the Nineteen Nineties when it too raised its age necessities.
Within the Nineteen Nineties each gymnastics and determine skating discovered themselves going through important controversy regarding the function baby athletes have been enjoying in every sport. Joan Ryan’s e-book Little Ladies in Fairly Bins was not only a critique of all the issues plaguing gymnastics, however determine skating as effectively. It was as if determine skating was the IOC’s “downside baby” of the Winter Olympics whereas gymnastics was its downside baby of the Summer time Olympics.
Each sports activities needed to change, and each sports activities tried precisely that. Determine Skating raised its age Restrict in 1996, whereas gymnastics did the identical in 1997. However for 2 sports activities with an identical dependency on baby athletes, ushering in a really related rule change at exactly the identical time, they ended up in two utterly totally different locations after the change was made.
For determine skating, the function of kid athletes has not gone away. If something, determine skating is experiencing its personal “little lady period” much like what gymnastics was going through within the time of the Nineteen Seventies when so many coaches have been attempting to repeat the template of a 14 12 months previous Nadia Comaneci. Determine skating’s senior degree has been dominated as of late by athletes who’re simply barely over the minimal age necessities. Whereas on the junior degree, it has been overtaken by skaters who’re anticipated to compete for medals the second they flip senior.
In determine skating, the age minimums solely serve to maneuver the needle ever so barely. Altering the game from being dominated by baby athletes of their younger teenage years, to athletes of their mid to late teenage years. The ages have risen, however the emphasis on athletes who hover across the junior/senior divide has remained in place.
For gymnastics, issues couldn’t have been anymore totally different. Beginning within the Nineteen Nineties the game has skilled a full blown age revolution that within the three a long time since, has proven no indications of waning. In girls’s gymnastics the athletes of in the present day are far older than their counterparts of earlier generations. The typical age, typical profession size, and share of medals going to older gymnasts have all skyrocketed.
There’s a motive determine skating and gymnastics diverged in two utterly other ways on the subject of kid athletes. If there’s one paragraph that needs to be remembered by these studying this text, it’s the following:
When gymnastics raised its age minimal, it did so together with a serious rule overhaul that made it simpler for older athletes to stay aggressive. Gymnastics didn’t pivot away from baby athletes by elevating its age minimal, it did so by dismantling the whole construction that favored baby athletes on the Olympics. The adjustments to gymnastics’ age minimal had solely a minor impact to a a lot bigger pattern.
The info overwhelmingly helps the conclusion that elevating the age minimal will not be what’s driving up the ages of feminine Olympic gymnasts. The final time FIG (which is the governing physique for gymnastics) launched greater age limits was throughout the 1997-2000 Olympic quad. And but the typical age of feminine gymnasts elevated within the 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympic quads with none additional intervention from FIG within the type of further will increase to age eligibility guidelines. (The info beneath comes from a previous article).
This pattern not solely applies to the typical age of feminine gymnasts, however their longevity as effectively. (This knowledge additionally comes from a previous article).
It’s not that gymnastics presently enjoys the continued presence of older, veteran gymnasts. It’s that the pattern in determine skating the place a few of its strongest athletes hover across the age minimums merely doesn’t exist in gymnastics. On the 2021 Olympics in girls’s gymnastics, solely three athletes had a 2005 beginning 12 months which was the minimal age wanted to compete. There have been solely seven gymnasts with a 2004 beginning 12 months, the equal of being a second-year senior.
Of the 16 Olympic medals gained within the particular person occasions at 2021 Olympics in girls’s gymnastics:
0 or (0%) have been gained by a 1st-year senior
1 or (6%) have been gained by a 2nd-year senior or youthful
4 or (25%) have been gained by a Third-year senior or youthful
5 or (31%) have been gained by a 4th-year senior or youthful
6 or (37%) have been gained by a Fifth-year senior or youthful
Gymnasts who have been in a minimum of their sixth 12 months of eligibility accounted 62.5% of all medals gained within the particular person occasions. The first-year and 2nd-year seniors have been virtually solely shut out.
Moreover the adjustments to the age minimal, it was two main rule adjustments within the Nineteen Nineties that ushered in these altering demographics. The primary rule was the eradication of staff compulsories, the second rule was the invention of the occasion specialist function.
Workforce Compulsories was an previous format the place each gymnast needed to study two routines for a similar piece of kit. The primary routine (referred to as optionals) was her private routine that she may create based mostly on no matter abilities she appreciated finest. The second routine was a standardized set created by FIG referred to as “compulsories.” It was designed so that each gymnast at a serious competitors would carry out the identical an identical routine they usually may very well be judged based mostly on how they carry out whereas doing the very same abilities.
Right now gymnasts nonetheless carry out two routines, however they carry out the identical routine twice, as soon as in qualifying and as soon as within the staff finals competitors. Gymnasts are not compelled to study two totally different routines, the online result’s it frees up half their time within the coaching corridor. This one rule change lowered the burden positioned on gymnasts by 50%.
The opposite main rule change was the creation of an “occasion specialist” function. Previous to the introduction of occasion specialists within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, each gymnast needed to compete on all 4 items of kit (vault, bars, beam and ground). What the newly created “occasion specialist” function allowed for was dropping the requirement {that a} gymnast needed to compete on each equipment. As an alternative, a gymnast may “specialize” on three, two, and even only one occasion. If a gymnast had gold medal prospects on the uneven bars, she didn’t need to waste her time studying vault, beam, or ground routines.
In speedy succession, FIG had created two rule adjustments, the primary diminished the variety of routines a gymnast needed to study by 50%. The second rule had the impact of decreasing the minimal variety of occasions a gymnast needed to compete on by as a lot as 75%. When these two guidelines have been mixed, it created a state of affairs the place gymnasts abruptly had 87.5% much less workload and will discover more practical methods to spend their time within the fitness center.
All of it comes all the way down to simple arithmetic the place the game pivoted from a 4 x 2 = 8 format to a 1 x 1 = 1 format. Whereas earlier than a gymnast needed to study all 4 occasions, and two routines per occasion, the minimal required dedication to stay within the sport was now actually “1.” If a coach needed you on the Olympic staff, you can go to the Olympics whereas coaching just one routine on only one occasion.
These two guidelines had a supersized impact when put collectively. And it utterly upended the facility stability between young and old gymnasts. Earlier than these adjustments went into impact, getting old veteran gymnasts had little likelihood at preserving tempo with a youthful, smaller gymnast. The burden of being compelled to study eight totally different routines was far simpler for a younger gymnast who was on contemporary legs and didn’t have a prolonged damage historical past plus normal exhaustion of a protracted profession holding her again.
Moreover the wear and tear and tear {that a} lengthy profession has on a gymnast, being an older gymnast means having a physique that’s extra vulnerable to exhaustion because the toll of preforming eight totally different routines added up. An older gymnast can also be extra prone to get injured. As a result of she will not be as small because the 1st-year seniors, her bigger measurement means extra drive on the joints every time she swings on the bars or lands on a mat. All of those components guaranteeing that when put by means of the grind of studying eight totally different routines, a smaller and youthful gymnast will come out on high.
However within the trendy period, not solely has the enjoying discipline be leveled between the 2 age teams, in some methods it’s laborious for the youthful gymnasts to maintain tempo with the older gymnasts. One prime instance of how important of a bonus an getting old veteran gymnast has due to the “occasion specialist” possibility is the best way it shields her from regression. It permits for an getting old veteran who’s a standout uneven bars employee to stay within the sport even when the pure decline (regression) that comes with age begins to point out itself. The regression will affect her means on vault, beam, and ground, however so long as she nonetheless has a aggressive uneven bars routine, she nonetheless has a viable profession path going ahead.
Below these circumstances, some younger gymnasts have to attend years earlier than they will eclipse an getting old veteran who has the luxurious of sticking to the one or two occasions that fits her finest. The “specialists” rule even helps middle-aged gymnasts who can save the pounding on their our bodies on the halfway level of their careers, which can be important in later years as they push themselves to proceed competing into their 2nd or Third Olympic cycle.
These two rule adjustments have been monumental in ushering in a brand new period of longevity and are the primary components in why gymnasts proceed to skew older even within the 25 years since FIG has raised the age minimal in gymnastics. However there have been different components as effectively.
