Team USA’s Simone Biles will compete in the women’s vault final in rhythmic gymnastics on Day 8 of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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In 1976, 14-year-old Romanian Nadia Comaneci won the gold medal with the first perfect 10 points in Olympic history.
Since then, the ranks of elite female gymnasts – which previously included women in their 20s and 30s – have been filled with teenagers.
“If you look at the early 1980s [and] In the 1970s, a lot of gymnasts looked the same,” said Janelle McDonald, head coach of women’s gymnastics at UCLA.
The pressure to stay young and stay in shape is enormous: Female gymnasts worry about going through puberty, because menstruation means growing taller and gaining weight.
“In the past, you would see a lot of athletes quit the sport,” McDonald said. “Because they have not been given the grace to allow their bodies to grow and change.”
In 1997, the International Gymnastics Federation raised the minimum age for Olympic participation to 16 to protect girls’ health. Rather than destroying the sport, as some critics predicted, it transformed it.
“Our sport is a repetition sport, and the more reps you can do, the stronger you will become,” McDonald said.
Years of practice allow gymnasts to perfect their timing and body awareness. “When you go through puberty,” she adds, “you actually get stronger, you get more powerful, you have the ability to do what we Some skills that are not available.
These included five moves named after Simone Biles under the International Gymnastics Federation Points Rules, showcasing the 27-year-old gymnast’s strength, power and precision.
For example, on the field, Byers executed a tumbling pass that resulted in a triple-double — two flips and three full rotations. On the vault, Biles performed a Yurchenko double dip, the most difficult vault in women’s gymnastics that requires speed and huge abdominal and leg muscles, while 23-year-old Jordan Chiles Then Yurchenko performed a double twisting move.
Puberty is a critical time for growth: Girls’ testosterone levels increase, helping to build muscle mass; Dr. Anne-Marie Amies Oelschlager, a pediatric and adolescent gynecologist at the University of Washington in charge of young Studies of athletes, she said, show that girls have higher levels of estrogen, which helps build bone density.
When bones develop during puberty, the growth plates open and do not close until healthy levels of estrogen are reached after ovulation.
“The advantage of delaying the age of competing in Olympic gymnastics is that by the time people compete, like Simone Biles, she has healthy bones that are able to fully mature,” Dr. Amis Erschlag said.
Dr. Amies Oelschlager says the career longevity of today’s female gymnasts — Biles is 27, Brazilian floor exercise gold medalist Rebecca Andrade is 25 — is due to psychological maturity and the benefits of age. Personal independence.
There’s a big difference between training and performing an elite sport as a teenager and being a 25-year-old saying, ‘I’m going to do this,'” due to pressure from coaches and parents. This is my choice and I will move forward,” said Amies Oelschlager. “It’s a different mental mindset.”
UCLA coach McDonald recently returned from the Paris Olympics, where she was coaching UCLA athlete Emma Malabuyo, who was competing for the Philippines.
She welcomes a new era in women’s gymnastics, with a large number of athletes competing at the highest level. Gymnasts prefer this sport because they can use their voice, show their personality, and have a say in their training.
“I do think this is a shift in the sport,” she said. “The skills we’re seeing now blow my mind.”
