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Originally Posted by B-Line
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And as far as Bela Caroly. Well he is a retired coach. His interest is in winning, no matter what the cost and the advancement of the sport/routines. Asking him if young girls should compete is like asking a drug dealer if it's okay for 14 year olds to get high.
He has made a career of sacrificing young girls bodies for the sport. The old, winning is EVERYTHING attitude.
These young girls are banging their bodies over and over and over and over. And maybe there should be an age restriction on all sports.
MD,
I agree about the IOC and will gladly add a "don't care" to the poll. I never really gave the issue any thought either, until I read an article about it and it got me thinking. I think that along with the fact the Olympics coincided with my dog agility. And the fact that my dog is not allowed to jump..
I would hate to see a world where we treat our pets better than we treat our children...
I personally don't like seeing these very young girls competing the way they do. Something about it seems very |
Just because they impose an age limit, who's to say 14yo girls won't train as hard in anticipation of their debut at 16? These atheletes train their hardest from the day they enter the sport until the day they leave.
I'm not arguing against the fact that a sport like gymnastics could have detrimental effects on a young person's physical development; but I don't see the age limit having any positive effect. If anything, not having an age limit might be beneficial. Atheletes would most likely leave the sport sooner.
And enforcing such a rule is clearly impossible. A country can produce passports and birth certificates that might seem obviously false, but how can the IOC verify otherwise?