gymnastics, floor

YY, they're not dancers, they are gymnasts. Some of the gymnasts do the dance elements well, others look a bit forced. But it's the gymnastics I want to watch, not how well they can dance.

I think my issue with the dance bits in the women's floor routines are that they are so obviously and uncomfortably just stuck on. The dance does not appear to be properly incorporated into the whole.
If men and women were required to involve syncopated involved dance into the whole it would be amazing.

Because men's gymnastics tends to be more about strength than aesthetics.

But why don't men wear leotards high cut to enhance their leg lines? Their shorts and jogging bottoms don't seem to impede their safe use of the equipment.

Leotards are cut like they are to enhance leg lines.

Shorts, leggings, biketards etc just don't have the same aesthetic look. You'd be ok if you were naturally build long and leggy, but you'd bias against the shorter powerful girls.

Honestly, leotards haven't evolved to show off the female form, but to show of athletic lines and increase scoring potential, as well as safety- fabrics slip so leggings etc aren't as safe.

For another take on women's rights in gymnastics, look up the Muslim Malay girl who won at the Asian games this year. If gymnasts feel comfortable in a leotard, it's safe and makes them feel good, then why shouldn't they?

Perhaps body shape and figure over talent would be more appropriate terms than looks for dancer selection.

I admit I'd enjoy the men's gymnastics more if it incorporated more dance and stuff, men showing off muscles alone doesn't impress me much! Someone upthread said about dancing being perceived as a female domain in our culture with its toxic grunt-grunt view of masculinity, which is clearly rot. Think cossack dancing, or Michael Flatley's irish, or indeed any traditional folk. Men bring a great deal of energy into dance which is wonderful to watch.

The ballet thing, women dancers are usually petite because they are selected primarily on looks over talent (honestly, there used to be enough would-be ballerinas that the few companies have their pick) and there are specific height restrictions which preserve the traditional male/ female domains for all those traditional hero-rescues-heroine-in-distress ballets. Modern dance does question the roles, but they're still there. Performance art unfortunately, aesthetics matters.

I think it would be easy to design a less revealing garment for the women, that would not restrict their performance in any way. I think I am right in saying that, in other sports, money is spent on optimising fabrics and kit so that it allows the best performance - in cycling, for example, Sky have spent a lot of money on making their kit work as well as possible for their cyclists, and rugby shirts are clearly designed now, with the modern game in mind - bits of the shirt that look grippy, for in the scrum, and tight fitting fabrics so it's harder to grab a handful of shirt and pull someone down when you tackle them. Not to mention breathability of fabrics.

Given all the science and design knowhow in the sports kit industry, I am sure it would be possible to design a beautiful, practical leotard that didn't ride up at the back, and didn't mandate waxing at the front, but didn't impede the gymnasts' performance or stop the judges seeing their lines and body shapes in the moves.

The differences are historical. At the start of the last century women danced about a bit on the apparatus while men were more acrobatic.

With Nadia came change- then the Russians in the 80's started doing the men's tricks, and women's gymnastics became all about the difficulty and strength. Interestingly many in the gymnastics world think women's gymnastics should be trying to be more artistic, with more dance, rather than just try to emulate men.

Women tend to be younger because after puberty strength to weight ratio changes. So they need to learn the really difficult stuff young, as it's too hard to be learning it, and keeping up with strength as your body is changing and growing. Men hit peak strength:weight after puberty, so they learn the hard stuff later, plus there's less pounding on the body at a young age, so their bodies last longer.

The older gymnasts tend to be event specialists- discussing on one or two apparatus, as it's less stress on the body, they don't need to train so many hours, and their careers last longer.

I think the age you stop doing gym can depend on what apparatus you do. I would argue that the bars require more upper body strength than the other women's apparatus, which is why Beth Tweddle was still winning medals at the grand old age of 27. But I don't think she would have won medals on the beam or floor at that age when it's more about flexibility. Ditto for the men - much more about strength so they can go on for longer.

However, I don't know why leotards are worn. From what I remember, leotards are horrible uncomfortable garments. Leggings would be much better. I think clothes have to be tight though, like diving, so you can see what the body is doing.

I thought that men's and women's gymnastics were different because he sport is designed to show off what the body can do & men's and women's bodies are different. Men use apparatus which requires a lot of upper body strength because they tend to have more upper body strength. Men would find it very hard to do the beam because they are larger than women and falling would be very unpleasant! I don't know why women perform routines to music though.

I think gymnastics is one sport where both men and women can perform. Why would you want women to do what the men do, but not as well as them? Why not have them doing something they can do better?

Incidentally, gymnastics has long been viewed as a "women's sport"; why change it so women are doing what the men do? That seems far more sexist to me.

I don't think it's fair to say that the women don't get to show off their strength, it's just different to the way the men do. I prefer woman's gymnastics because IMO it's more well rounded and not just about power. A bit like women's tennis.

I've known a number of GB gymnasts, the women were some of the best athletes I've ever seen. Strong, quick, flexible, agile. Very impressive.

The women do look a LOT younger than they actually are though. There was a Chinese girl who I thought was 9 or 10 who was actually 19.

It's also to do with the impact it has on girl's bodies, their bodies give up on gymnastics long before their head does. That's not the case for men.

I hate gymnastics as it creates a sport where women need to wax and show their bums while the men don't.
Also, the girl's career is over very quickly but the men can carry on longer.

The women also don't have apparatus that shows upper body strength the way the men do - this assumes women shouldn't have muscled arms or upper bodies but it's ok to have a leotard garotting your rectum.

My friend's daughter dropped out of gymnastics at 16 as she was 6 stone and told she was overweight.

The girls in DD's gymnastics class mostly wear shorts for practice, and only wear the leotard alone for competitions.

And while ballet might have women being lifted by men, the last dance performance I watched was contemporary dance in which the female dancer was allowed to show off her strength and lifted the male dancers as much as they lifted her.

It's obviously my issue as well, it really winds me up that women have to wear such skimpy knickers when they could easily wear shorts.

I watch a lot of tennis and I am always pleased to see a female player in shorts, but it's unusual.

I'm questioning the whole requirement for the women's performances to be flouncy, dancey, and more sexualised than the men's. All that stuff actively detracts from the demonstration of strength & skill.

I disagree on this.

Why shouldn't it be? Why should the women conform to the men's sport not the other way round?

Have you watched any figure skating? Plenty of sparkles and dancey bits.

I actually prefer the women's because of the music, the men's seems to be thump, thump, thump.

I went to a girls' school. One of the teachers once said she had to fight at standardization meetings because the EVs would tend to mark down work with pretty pictures or fancy folders, she had to point out that the extra decoration was in addition to the content and the content was just as good. She said girls seemed more likely to add pictorial content and that they shouldn't be marked down for it.

Years ago when I did gymnastics, girls did sometimes wear shorts for training but they were tight lycra ones, not like what the men wear for some apparatus. Baggy shorts can hinder you on the bars (or maybe that was just me being utterly useless at them). Louis Smith wears what are more like leggings for the pommel, presumably for similar reasons and/or it's harder to see if you're clearing the pommel if you have baggy shorts on.

Women's gymnastics is very a visual sport, similar to diving. Running/swimming/cycling is about speed, it doesn't matter how you look. Men's gymnastics has strength elements as well as visual ones. It is essentially a sport for showing off what your body can do though.

I do think that the women should be able to wear the legging type things though. I don't know for certain but IIRC they are currently not allowed to.

So glad it's not just me.

Its the same in athletics, men wear shorts and a vest, women seem to wear increasingly tiny pants and crop tops. Are they pressured by sponsors, is this the kit supplied by national associations? If there was a sports science reason for tiny shorts I am sure in the cutthroat world of top athletics the men would wear them, but no mo Farah wears a perfectly normal pair of shorts rather than budgie smugglers.

If and when you go to the ballet do you question why the woman are being gracefully lifted about by the men?

There are physical differences between men and woman - mainly that men are taller and bigger built. I had to laugh when they commented on how tall a gymnast was - when she got off the beam and stood next to the coach she looks about 5'5! Hardly 'tall'!

Look at other sports - swimmer, high jumperss and basketball players are generally tall. Ballet dancers and gymnasts are usually petite. Sport is one of those professions where talent alone is not enough - your physical growth will affect your performance.

Nishky I've asked here about the knickers in athletics and running too, but apparently those are my issues and women need to be seen in a tiny gusset for their optimum performance. Men are much more able to cope with restrictive/flappy shorts.

Spare - yes, most of the women appeared amazingly muscled, but there were a couple of very young-looking (though the one in particular was apparently 19, she looked 9) women who looked malnourished, if anything. Though they still displayed incredible strength and power.