Why aren't there any black females on the Olympic women's gymnastics team?

Question

When it comes to running fast virtually ALL participants in women's races are black--almost every single one. And the winner is exclusively black. But in gymnastics (or in swiming and diving) there are virtually NO black women (or men) that compete. Is there any good reason for this?

Answer 1

Interest and Body type many Black People simply don't have the time or money to invest in gymnastics or swimming events. You can ask the same questions for many whites for sports like Track and Field and Basketball.

For example my parents are african and I asked them why don't african people do gymnastics in the olympics. My Dad answered that many of them have to work and just don't have the time to invest in Sport like those.  He also said that they grow up playing soccer and track &field.

Answer 2

Atalanta American Gynatic winning team had a Black female and British team here in China had Black female.

Answer 3

Probably they dont get involved enough to at least know how the sport works

Answer 4

I saw one black female gymnast from Brazil and Australia's Sally Mclellan won a silver medal in athletics 100m hurdles...she is very white and blonde.

Answer 5

It's a mix of cultural, environmental and genetics factors.

Cultural factors:

Gymnastics have always been culturally-related to white or asian people, and as far as I've seen, black people don't like to practise activities related to a non-black race. That's not only in sports, but in music (they like hip hop, how many black rockers do you know besides lenny kravitz and jimmy hendrix?), clothing (almost all black people wear enyce, sean john, phat farm, etc), and many other things, for some reason black people are always trying to be and look different than the rest... so in sports. (at least in north america)

Environmental:

Don't expect people in Africa practising such a "delicate and elegant" sport as gymnastics. Why? it requires more money to invest than track and field or soccer. Weather could be another factor, in Africa (and in the caribbean) it's hot all the time, so they like sports where they can run outdoors rather than dancing with a ribbon inside a room.

Genetics:

For gymnastics a flexible and somewhat slim body is needed. Asians' bodytype are perfect for this since most of them are small, slim and flexible. White people´s bodytypes are very diverse, but proportionally there are more slim people compared along with black people. Blacks are (most of them) thick, muscular and women have wider hips and bigger buttocks.

But I guess the cultural factors are the most important reasons for this to happen.

Answer 6

When I was around 10 years old, I wanted to do gymnastics. But for whatever reason, my mom enrolled me in ballet school when I was 4 and she didn't let me do anything else and up to this day I still do ballet and I'm 20.  So I really don't know the answer. It's a little subjective. There are black children who take gymnastics. Maybe not as many as whites? Or maybe they just don't bother to enter the olympics? Maybe it's something they lose interest in after doing it so long as a child. Like for example, my cousin did gymnastics when she was little. But when she started 6th grade she started going to cheer camps. I don't think she was ever interested in the olympics. However, gymnastics is great training for cheerleaders to have. And she cheered from 7th to 12th grade. But she is not a cheerleader at her current college and has no interest whatsoever in the sport. She just lost interest and moved on.

Answer 7

Who knows? There are so many possible reasons why America had no black gymnasts, can you really be like "it's soley because of this reason and nothing else contributed to it." If I had to choose a major reason I would say body type.

Answer 8

The reason that there aren't any Blacks, if any, in Female Gymnastics is because Black women tend to be fat as Oprah. You should be preferably skinny and small, attributes rarely seen in the Black population. It's genetics and there isn't much they can do.

Answer 9

There's no good reason.  There have been a lot of good black american gymnasts in the past, but this year it just happened that there weren't any.  I think there are some good juniors coming up though.  Also, 1996 was very diverse culturally, which I thought was really cool...

Answer 10

Wow. The answers here confirm my thoughts that most Americans black or white are so racist. Body types? Money? What ****** up racist c**p is that? Black body types are some of the most diverse on the planet. Not all black people are thick and heavy in the butt. I've seen TONS of black women with pole thin bodies and no ***. Have any of you looked closely at a gymnast's body? They're not graceful, slender willow reeds. They're short stocky masses of densely compacted muscle and shorter than average limbs. The training actually CHANGES their natural body type, delaying the development of hips and b***s and other womanly things. And that "black people prefer to be outside" thing. Wtf? I"M from the Caribbean and I don't remember spending a lot of time running track in the scorching sun because I didn't have the discipline to stay indoors and learn something that requires more skill than running around. Do you people listen to yourselves? God!

Answer 11

That is not matter of race, every one can do, just don't want to do

Answer 12

Why aren't there any white males on the men's basketball team?

Diane Durham

Dominique Dawes

Becky Downie

Answer 13

So obviously it is because fewer black athletes are in the sport, hence the top 5 in the country are white.  I'm sure if blacks entered gymnastics at the rate whites do there would be one or two on the team.  It is not racist or anything, it is probably just culture that whites sign there kids up for gymnastics and diving and blacks sign their kids up for track etc.

Answer 14

maybe this sounds crazy, but i think maybe one reason is young girls watch the olympics and identify with older girls/women of their own race and so they naturally aspire to follow in their footsteps in the sport they saw them in.

Answer 15

Ricky_ 09

I seriously hope you understand how ignorant you sound.

The price of the olympic training? what the h**l does that have to do with color?

Where i'm from (AMERICA) color has no say in status. At least not the last time I checked.

Answer 16

I saw one. I just forgot what country it was.

Answer 17

well why arent there any white women in track? same question..well i hate to say this..but doesnt gymnastic training cost alot of money? especially if your training for the olympics..

response to LO!..he asked if there's any good reason and i think what i said is a valid and reasonable reason, how is that ignorant, maybe i should of re-word it differntly...i know race has no say in status, if you work hard enough you'll become sucesfull

Answer 18

Perhaps many don't gravitate to those sports. For instance I live in a big city (possibly the bigges, I'm sure you can guess) and I remember almost all of the city high schools having some form of a track team whereas swimming and certainly (private) gymnastics programs were hard to come by. So there are more factors at work here than just race, you must also thing about geogrophy, socio-economic status, and of course media coverage. Running may just be more prominent in the areas that those athletes originate.

Answer 19

they just don't do the sport as much?