Actually, you are part right and part wrong. The age limit is there to try to prevent under-aged athletes from trying to execute certain maneuvers and exercises that could greatly injure someone, before their bones and muscles are fully developed.

As funny as it sounds, they do the same thing with dog agility. Dogs who are less than 1.5 years old are not allowed to do certain jumping exercises as they don't want to stunt healthy development of the dog. Of course, some people do it anyway, but the idea is to try to prevent it. And while I can't prevent my dog from jumping up and down on the bed, agility officials don't want to encourage people from pushing their dogs to hard before they develop, for fear of long term damage during development years. IT'S THE SAME THEORY FOR GYMNASTICS...

Secondly, it is proven that younger athletes in certain events DO have advantages. Since they are not fully developed, their hips have not grown in, they haven't reached full height, they are then able to do certain maneuvers like, more flips in the air and certain types of twists, that a fully developed person of age, could not do.

So the idea that a young person can do more impressive and higher scoring routines, while at the same time, damaging their developing bodies beyond what would be considered okay, is the reason, they try to prevent kids from competing at an olympic level, too early. It's a recipe for disaster.

They also do the same thing for figure skating as lighter, smaller, less developed skaters can perform greater levels of routines. but it is that exact competitive advantage that is also hurting them.

The rule is actually a smart one, and encourages equal competition while trying to prevent unnecessary, long term, ill effects on the athletes..

BLine,
My opin is the IOC couldn't organize a lunch break for 10 people, unless
there was a sizable profit or ego gain in it, for that gang of idiots...

And, I don't care a rat's azz if the acrobats are 6 or 16...some arbitrary
number dreamed up based on... The divers can be 14, by the bye.
It is of zero import to the "games" or any country's "feelings" or, most viewers,
or me.

You need a "Don't Care" in your poll...
BR,mD

Like Michelle Wie...

Yeah they are probably cheating. I wouldn't be surprised if these kids were genetically engineered in a lab 12 years ago from the DNA of other Chinese athletes. I am not losing sleep over it though.

:iagree:

The commentator said that the main reason the Chinese use under-age atheletes is that most of these girls have a finite limit in terms of how much abuse their bodies can take. So they use younger girls who are in their view more in their prime; can train harder and probably execute better perhaps based on how hard they train their atheletes.

I don't think that is the logic behind the rule because it is unique to gymnastics. I was watching synchronized diving and there was a 14 year old male and a pair of US girls aged 15. I'm really not sure why the rule exists for gymnastics. :dunno:

As Bela Caroly stated as his opinion, the rule stinks and should be abolished. He believes that the Chinese girls are underage and that it was common to forge documents in his days in Romania. His argument is that if the girls are good enough at 13, 14, whatever age, to compete at the Olympic level, let them. He wants the playing field leveled.

Given that other Olympic sports allows competitors under age 16 years, why not follow his suggestion?

I suspect the difference has to do with the sport being high or low impact. Platform divers are allowed to be younger than gymnasts, because even though they do the same twisting maneuvers, the divers land in the pool. Less damage to the growing skeleton.

..:iagree:

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?

Vin,

Lets say that an underage girl can do a triple flip but a normal age girl can only do a double flip.

It would be the hope that a coach would understand, his underage girl need not learn the triple flip because by the time she gets to the Olympics she won't be able to do it anyway.

In other words, there is an incentive to not push the young athletes to do the more punishing tricks, which will be useless at the time of competition.

So while the 14 year old girl may train her heart out, she won't be training to do tricks that are putting greater harm on her body, because of her smaller size, which is also causing more damage to her body.