Notice: That is Half II of a 4-part collection.
Hyperlink to Half I
Hyperlink to Half II
Hyperlink to Half III
Hyperlink to Half IV
One other issue that will shock you was the breakup of the Soviet Union. The USSR was an absolute powerhouse in quite a few Olympic sports activities. Nearly each sport with worldwide competitors was impacted in some vital approach by the breakup of the USSR and the 15 new nations which emerged in its wake. However in ladies’s gymnastics, the impression of the Soviet Union’s sudden disappearance was of a much more monumental scale.
The USSR ladies’s gymnastics program was absolutely the superpower of girls’s gymnastics. It was one of the crucial profitable sports activities dynasties of all time and dominated the Olympics with larger impunity than the People do in males’s basketball. Soviet ladies’s gymnastics was undefeated in Olympic competitors and misplaced on solely three events in non-Olympic competitors. Most significantly, the USSR program had a lot depth that it might have certified three completely different groups and every of these groups might have contended for a medal.
After the breakup of the USSR, this huge expertise reserve was unloaded and a program that was beforehand restricted to sending just one workforce of 6 gymnasts to a serious competitors might now ship (theoretically) 15 completely different groups. The Soviet ladies’s gymnastics program was so huge that when it was break up into quite a few new applications it was truly capable of skew the age statistics.
On the 1996 Olympics gymnasts from post-Soviet nations accounted for twenty-four% of all athletes in ladies’s gymnastics. In All-Round Finals, they accounted for 31% of the contributors. For the majority of those ex-Soviet gymnasts, they did skew older. The reason is, with way more alternatives to proceed their careers now that the area was sending a number of groups to the Olympics, getting older veterans who in any other case would have been pushed out of the game had been capable of proceed competing now that there have been greater than six spots obtainable to them on the upcoming Olympics.
On the 1996 Olympics feminine gymnasts representing ex-Soviet nations had been on common six months older than the gymnasts from nations not a part of the previous Soviet Union. For comparability as to how vital a six month distinction is in Olympic age statistics, ladies’s gymnastics noticed its common age change by solely 5 months from 1984 to 1996.
On the 1996 Olympics Svetlana Boginskaya, an ex-Soviet from Belarus turned the primary athlete in ladies’s gymnastics to turn into a 3x Olympian for the reason that Nineteen Seventies. On the following Olympics two extra athletes reached this benchmark, Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan and Dominique Dawes of the US. In 2004 the 4th and fifth gymnasts within the fashionable historical past of the game reached this threshold, Lisa Skinner of Australia and Svetlana Khorkina of Russia.
The reemergence of the 3x Olympian was unequivocally led by ex-Soviet gymnasts. It was an ex-Soviet gymnast who turned the primary to do it within the fashionable period, in addition to further byproducts of the outdated Soviet system who had been tied for being the 2nd and 4th to do it. The success of those athletes was groundbreaking because it gave a confidence enhance to any gymnast looking for to make a comeback within the twilight of her profession, or a skeptical coach who beforehand thought older athletes weren’t price investing in.
If the previous Soviet Union was an important supply of feminine gymnasts skewing older, different nations in Jap Europe had been experiencing the identical pattern however for barely completely different causes. Jap Bloc powers (which weren’t a part of the USSR) had been additionally powerhouses in ladies’s gymnastics. However as a result of political upheaval, lack of authorities assist, devastating financial situations and an enormous exodus of its greatest teaching expertise to extra profitable alternatives within the West, these applications struggled to develop a powerful junior class at first of the Nineties.
As a substitute, these nations needed to depend on their getting older veterans who got here of age in an earlier period as a way to preserve the established order. Hungary for instance, singlehandedly had the first, third, and fifth oldest athletes in all of girls’s gymnastics on the 1996 Olympics. Of the eight oldest gymnasts in Atlanta-1996, seven of them had been from the previous Jap Bloc, together with the whole top-5.
In the middle of a single Olympic quad, the Jap Bloc which was usually chargeable for producing the youngest athletes within the sport fully reversed tendencies and was all of the sudden the principle producer of getting older veterans. On the 1992 Olympics of the 15 oldest athletes in ladies’s gymnastics, solely two got here from the Jap Bloc. In 1996 this very same area accounted for 9 of 15.
The introduction of occasion specialists, the elimination of compulsories, and the altering geopolitics of Jap Europe had been three main components that triggered the present period of longevity that’s now a mainstay in fashionable gymnastics. However even when none of that occurred, there have been two further components that helped usher within the age revolution of Nineties gymnastics. They weren’t a political occasion or a rule change from FIG, however two tendencies indicating that at first of the Nineties gymnastics was prepared for a demographic shift no matter no matter rulings FIG enacted.
The spark that made this demographic shift potential was the 1992 Olympic All-Round Finals. The gold, silver, and bronze medals went to a trio of 15 12 months olds. But it surely was the traits of the athletes who completed first and second that made literal headlines. The gold medal went to a gymnast named Tatiana Gutsu who was competing underneath the Olympic flag of former Soviet nations whereas the silver medal went to Shannon Miller, a gymnast from the US.
In a tactic that has since been discontinued due to exhausting classes discovered, the media was given the official measurements of each gymnasts and journalists broadly reported the numbers through the Olympics.
15 years outdated, 4 toes and 6 inches, 70 kilos (Tatiana Gutsu)
15 years outdated, 4 toes and 6 inches, 69 kilos (Shannon Miller)
The precisely equivalent physique sorts between the 2 gymnasts was a selected element the media obsessed over because it appeared for a cause to make the 1992 All-Round Finals appear compelling to the widespread fan. In no different All-Round Finals was the weights and sizes of the 2 strongest gymnasts repeated with such frequency as 1992. Whereas the media was pushing the Gutsu v. Miller showdown as a cute instance of kid athletes going to the Olympics and reaching greatness at such a younger age, inside the gymnastics neighborhood a bigger theme was at play.
Previous to Gutsu v. Miller in 1992, ladies’s gymnastics had spent the final 20 years witnessing its elite teaching class obsess over looking for the smallest potential Olympic gymnast. Within the late Nineteen Sixties and early Nineteen Seventies coaches started to embrace the idea that smaller, shorter, and pre-pubescent gymnasts had a bodily benefit over older gymnasts. However as a way to preserve a aggressive edge, these coaches needed to continuously innovate. And one of many methods they “innovated” was scouting for potential gymnasts who had been smaller than the final technology.
This pattern continued from the Nineteen Seventies and into the Nineteen Eighties. It was the identical idea as a racecar mechanic designing a barely extra aerodynamic automotive with every passing 12 months, so the present automotive can be quicker than the final. Gymnastics coaches had been working to supply lineups of gymnasts the place the heights and measurement of the workforce was smaller than the final. The thought being, the smaller physique traits would translate to superior efficiency.
However when Gutsu v. Miller occurred in 1992, issues had reached some extent the place a number of the strongest coaches realized that the athlete physique sorts had gotten so small, they couldn’t presumably get any smaller. Nobody was going to discover a 1st-year senior smaller than Gutsu or Miller, so in the event that they wished to maintain innovating, they needed to innovate differently. Gutsu v. Miller was the last word showdown between “little lady” gymnasts. But it surely was additionally the second the place coaches realized they weren’t going to attain success with the “little lady” mannequin in future generations in the event that they stored prioritizing small physique measurement above all else.
The lasting legacy of Gutsu v. Miller is that coaches wished to be completely different as a way to acquire a aggressive edge, and earlier than 1992 being completely different normally meant being smaller. However when Gutsu and Miller appeared on the 1992 Olympics with physique measurements that got here right down to just one pound separating them, being smaller now not meant being completely different. Having gymnasts weighing in at solely 69-70 kilos additionally created a notion that the game was at its restrict of how small All-Arounders might presumably get.
Disclaimer: Usually I don’t record particular physique measurements of gymnasts. However on this scenario I did so as a result of it offers vital historic context whereas the gymnasts concerned have been retired for roughly 25 years. These measurements are being talked about underneath the context that they’re out of date figures and fashionable gymnasts don’t should be this measurement to get to the Olympics.
So coaches appeared for brand spanking new methods to innovate, and began putting extra worth in metrics akin to conditioning and energy. The web outcome was gymnastics started producing athletes with extra muscle mass of their higher our bodies. On tv it was hardly noticeable, and even essentially the most passionate gymnastics followers ignored the variations in physique sort. However the sport was being overtaken by two opposing doctrines. One envisioning the way forward for the game to be dominated by gymnasts with extra seen higher physique energy. The opposite envisioning a future the place inventive gymnasts had physique sorts that intently resembled rhythmic gymnasts.
The explanation that is so not often talked about is as a result of to the tv viewer and even the gymnastics followers who love going again in time to look at outdated competitions on YouTube, the physique variations had been hardly noticeable. However inside the game, there was extra dialogue on the subject. Within the 1993-1996 Olympic quad Svetlana Boginskaya skilled each side of this divide. She competed for Belarus, an Jap European program that hadn’t embraced the pivot in direction of extra muscular gymnasts. However Boginskaya educated underneath Bela Karolyi in Texas, a agency believer on this idea.
“I do not forget that even the Belarusian gymnasts instructed me on the time that I used to be now not a ‘ballerina’ like earlier than. I had such muscle mass as by no means earlier than.”
The above quote is from Svetlana Boginskaya speaking about her experiences through the 1993-1996 Olympic cycle in Dvora Meyers’ e book The Finish of the Excellent 10.
The pattern in direction of greater and stronger gymnasts and the final decline of an outdated angle prioritizing shortness and/or thinness above all else grew with every passing Olympic quad. Naturally, the altering attitudes helped promote the function of older gymnasts.
Moreover Gutsu v. Miller in 1992, the opposite issue price mentioning alongside it which signaled the game was on the verge of an age revolution coming into the Nineties even with out impending rule adjustments or the breakup of the USSR was Olesia Dudnik.
