Be aware: That is Half II of a 4-part sequence.
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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 international locations 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 vital profitable sports activities dynasties of all time and dominated the Olympics with higher 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 totally 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 significant competitors might now ship (theoretically) 15 totally different groups. The Soviet ladies’s gymnastics program was so huge that when it was cut up into quite a few new applications it was really capable of skew the age statistics.
On the 1996 Olympics gymnasts from post-Soviet international locations accounted for twenty-four% of all athletes in ladies’s gymnastics. In All-Round Finals, they accounted for 31% of the members. 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, ageing 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 out there to them on the upcoming Olympics.
On the 1996 Olympics feminine gymnasts representing ex-Soviet international locations had been on common six months older than the gymnasts from international locations 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 grew to become the primary athlete in ladies’s gymnastics to turn out to be a 3x Olympian for the reason that Seventies. On the following Olympics two extra athletes reached this benchmark, Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan and Dominique Dawes of the USA. In 2004 the 4th and fifth gymnasts within the trendy 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 grew to become the primary to do it within the trendy period, in addition to extra byproducts of the previous 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 increase to any gymnast searching 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 a significant supply of feminine gymnasts skewing older, different international locations in Japanese Europe had been experiencing the identical pattern however for barely totally different causes. Japanese Bloc powers (which weren’t a part of the USSR) had been additionally powerhouses in ladies’s gymnastics. However because of political upheaval, lack of authorities help, devastating financial circumstances and a large exodus of its greatest teaching expertise to extra profitable alternatives within the West, these applications struggled to develop a robust junior class at first of the Nineties.
As a substitute, these international locations needed to depend on their ageing 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 Japanese Bloc, together with the whole top-5.
In the midst of a single Olympic quad, the Japanese Bloc which was sometimes liable for producing the youngest athletes within the sport fully reversed tendencies and was instantly the primary producer of ageing veterans. On the 1992 Olympics of the 15 oldest athletes in ladies’s gymnastics, solely two got here from the Japanese 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 Japanese Europe had been three main elements that triggered the present period of longevity that’s now a mainstay in trendy gymnastics. However even when none of that occurred, there have been two extra elements 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 attainable was the 1992 Olympic All-Round Finals. The gold, silver, and bronze medals went to a trio of 15 yr 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 USA.
In a tactic that has since been discontinued due to arduous classes discovered, the media was given the official measurements of each gymnasts and journalists extensively reported the numbers throughout the Olympics.
15 years previous, 4 ft and 6 inches, 70 kilos (Tatiana Gutsu)
15 years previous, 4 ft and 6 inches, 69 kilos (Shannon Miller)
The precisely similar physique sorts between the 2 gymnasts was a specific element the media obsessed over because it regarded for a purpose to make the 1992 All-Round Finals appear compelling to the frequent 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 attaining 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 attainable Olympic gymnast. Within the late Nineteen Sixties and early 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 always innovate. And one of many methods they “innovated” was scouting for potential gymnasts who had been smaller than the final era.
This pattern continued from the Seventies and into the Nineteen Eighties. It was the identical idea as a racecar mechanic designing a barely extra aerodynamic automotive with every passing yr, 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 a degree the place among the strongest coaches realized that the athlete physique sorts had gotten so small, they couldn’t probably get any smaller. Nobody was going to discover a 1st-year senior smaller than Gutsu or Miller, so in the event that they needed 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 needed to be totally different as a way to acquire a aggressive edge, and earlier than 1992 being totally different often meant being smaller. However when Gutsu and Miller appeared on the 1992 Olympics with physique measurements that got here all the way down to just one pound separating them, being smaller not meant being totally 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 probably get.
Disclaimer: Usually I don’t record particular physique measurements of gymnasts. However on this scenario I did so as a result of it supplies crucial 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 trendy gymnasts don’t must be this measurement to get to the Olympics.
So coaches regarded for brand spanking new methods to innovate, and began inserting extra worth in metrics reminiscent of conditioning and energy. The web outcome was gymnastics started producing athletes with extra muscular tissues of their higher our bodies. On tv it was hardly noticeable, and even probably the most passionate gymnastics followers missed 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 rationale that is so hardly ever 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 previous 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 either side of this divide. She competed for Belarus, an Japanese 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 advised me on the time that I used to be not a ‘ballerina’ like earlier than. I had such muscular tissues as by no means earlier than.”
The above quote is from Svetlana Boginskaya speaking about her experiences throughout the 1993-1996 Olympic cycle in Dvora Meyers’ e-book The Finish of the Good 10.
The pattern in direction of larger and stronger gymnasts and the final decline of an outdated perspective prioritizing shortness and/or thinness above all else grew with every passing Olympic quad. Naturally, the altering attitudes helped promote the position 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 getting into the Nineties even with out impending rule adjustments or the breakup of the USSR was Olesia Dudnik.
Hyperlink to Half III
