Whay are there no grown gymnast medals?

Question

I watched the gymnasts and I thought they were all adorable...I could almost picture them in kindergarten... Would it be so bad if they had olympic gymnasts in age groups? Like p*****n, teen, and grown? I would hardly take away the 10-13 year old kids medals for being underage but it would give them something to keep striving for: what about grown olympian gymnasts ? Why do they not have that category?

Answer 1

Theres a reason you have to be 16...anything below that is JO level or Provincial. They either need to do away with the age limit completely and NOT have age groups (no sport in the Olympics does that) or make sure they follow the guidelines.

Please do yourself a favour and read up on gymnastics injuriies, its much worse on the younger group. And you'd have like 2 people over the age of 20.

Answer 2

Because the body of anyone over the age of 22 is more then likely not suitable to do the things Gymnasts have to do

Higher age:Higher chance of serious injury..

Answer 3

Personally I think it would be much more logical to divide gymnastics into length groups, since being shorter is definitely an advantage here. Like say for women into 3 groups : under 1.45 meter, 1.45 - 1.60 meter and over 1.60 meter (or something like that). It would be a bit like weight groups for judo, wrestling and weightlifting.

Answer 4

By the time they reach 20 a gymnast usually has been training for up to 15 years so many are just ready to retire.  There were actually quite a few 18 to 20 year olds in the various womens teams and a smattering of older gymnasts as well so it wasn't all very young competitors.  

In the mens of course there were many gymnasts over 20 as the strength component is so much greater for mens gymnastics.

Answer 5

In Beijing 2008, Oksana Chusovitina of Germany, competed - she was aged 33 and it was her 5th Olympics. She won a Silver medal in the Gymnastics Vault. Some of her competition/rivals were not even born when she first started competing internationally.

The article linked below is a good read.

Age groups would be difficult - there are not that many to compete at older ages - the amount/commitment of training quite a lot; many of the gymnast tend to leave and want to live normal lives by their 20's (i.e. married, have children, jobs etc...)

Oksana is the exception - she even is determined to compete at the next Olympics - at 37!  I wish her all the best.