Observe: That is Half I of a 4-part collection.
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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 youngster athletes in excessive degree competitors. The followers need it, and the purpose of making situations the place youngster athletes aren’t compelled into excessive degree competitors at absurdly younger ages is broadly supported.
However regardless of the ISU taking this crucial step in making an attempt to boost the bar for its youngest rivals, I do really feel a phrase of warning is required and that the determine skating neighborhood ought to be aware 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 youngster athletes had been enjoying in every sport. Joan Ryan’s e book Little Ladies in Fairly Containers was not only a critique of all the issues plaguing gymnastics, however determine skating as nicely. It was as if determine skating was the IOC’s “downside youngster” of the Winter Olympics whereas gymnastics was its downside youngster of the Summer season 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 analogous dependency on youngster athletes, ushering in a really related rule change at exactly the identical time, they ended up in two utterly completely 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” just like what gymnastics was going through within the time of the Seventies when so many coaches had been making an attempt to repeat the template of a 14 yr outdated Nadia Comaneci.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 youngster 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 completely 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 immediately 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 cause determine skating and gymnastics diverged in two utterly alternative 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 significant rule overhaul that made it simpler for older athletes to stay aggressive. Gymnastics didn’t pivot away from youngster athletes by elevating its age minimal, it did so by dismantling your complete construction that favored youngster athletes on the Olympics. The modifications 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 shouldn’t be what’s driving up the ages of feminine Olympic gymnasts. The final time FIG (which is the governing physique for gymnastics) launched increased 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 under comes from a previous article).
This pattern not solely applies to the typical age of feminine gymnasts, however their longevity as nicely. (This knowledge additionally comes from a previous article).
It isn’t that gymnastics at present 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 start yr which was the minimal age wanted to compete. There have been solely seven gymnasts with a 2004 start yr, 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%) had been gained by a 1st-year senior
1 or (6%) had been gained by a 2nd-year senior or youthful
4 or (25%) had been gained by a Third-year senior or youthful
5 or (31%) had been gained by a 4th-year senior or youthful
6 or (37%) had been gained by a Fifth-year senior or youthful
Gymnasts who had been in not less than their sixth yr of eligibility accounted 62.5% of all medals gained within the particular person occasions. The first-year and 2nd-year seniors had been virtually totally shut out.
Apart from the modifications to the age minimal, it was two main rule modifications 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.
Group Compulsories was an outdated format the place each gymnast needed to study two routines for a similar piece of apparatus. The primary routine (known as optionals) was her private routine that she may create based mostly on no matter abilities she preferred greatest. The second routine was a standardized set created by FIG known as “compulsories.” It was designed so that each gymnast at a significant competitors would carry out the identical similar routine and so they may very well be judged based mostly on how they carry out whereas doing the very same abilities.
At this time 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 now not compelled to study two completely 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 apparatus (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 a substitute, 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 modifications, the primary diminished the variety of routines a gymnast needed to study by 50%. The second rule had the impact of reducing the minimal variety of occasions a gymnast needed to compete on by as a lot as 75%. When these two guidelines had been mixed, it created a situation the place gymnasts immediately had 87.5% much less workload and will discover more practical methods to spend their time within the gymnasium.
All of it comes right 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 wished you on the Olympic staff, you possibly 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 modifications went into impact, growing older veteran gymnasts had little likelihood at retaining tempo with a youthful, smaller gymnast. The burden of being compelled to study eight completely different routines was far simpler for a younger gymnast who was on recent legs and didn’t have a prolonged damage historical past plus basic exhaustion of a protracted profession holding her again.
Apart from the damage and tear {that a} lengthy profession has on a gymnast, being an older gymnast means having a physique that’s extra susceptible to exhaustion because the toll of preforming eight completely different routines added up. An older gymnast can be extra more likely to get injured. As a result of she shouldn’t be as small because the 1st-year seniors, her bigger dimension means extra power on the joints every time she swings on the bars or lands on a mat. All of those elements guaranteeing that when put by way of the grind of studying eight completely different routines, a smaller and youthful gymnast will come out on high.
However within the fashionable period, not solely has the enjoying discipline be leveled between the 2 age teams, in some methods it’s onerous for the youthful gymnasts to maintain tempo with the older gymnasts. One prime instance of how important of a bonus an growing older veteran gymnast has due to the “occasion specialist” possibility is the way in which it shields her from regression. It permits for an growing older 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 indicate 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.
Beneath these circumstances, some younger gymnasts have to attend years earlier than they will eclipse an growing older veteran who has the posh of sticking to the one or two occasions that fits her greatest. 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 very important in later years as they push themselves to proceed competing into their 2nd or Third Olympic cycle.
These two rule modifications had been monumental in ushering in a brand new period of longevity and are the principle elements 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 elements as nicely.
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