To find watching the gymnastics utterly depressing?

[GandalfsWrinklyHat]

Watching the olympics - gymnastics on right now. Think it's the team competition bit. I know nothing about gymnastics at all, and am in awe of all those girls doing what they're doing, but they are SO YOUNG. And I cannot imagine that they could have had much of a childhood at all. I just find it so depressng. And they must surely know pain? You cannot train to do what they're doing and not experience a lot of pain. Somebody set me straight. I actually feel quite guilty for watching... Am I wrong?

Meh as a competitive figure skater in my past who achieved becoming my country's champion at senior level, and have friends who have skated at the Olympics I see no problem.

For my a catastrophic I jury ruled me out of anything in my teens, yes I sacrificed many hours as did my Olympic friends but the life lessons learnt are priceless.

Work hard, dream and achieve. Never be afraid to fail, everyone fails, but it's what you do with that feeling of failure that will define you not the failure itself.

I'm now a structured and well balanced adult who works hard. I take nothing for granted and hope to in still healthy competition and postitive hard working attitudes in my children

All in all, it downy bother me. They want to be there, they want to win.

CuppaTea they have drugs for that now.

Ds is an elite gymnast. He started age 5 with 1 hour a week then slowly increased to his current level. He loves it. His best friends are in his squad. He cries when he has to miss training. He has a childhood but misses certain things - birthday parties etc that clash with training but he always can choose. If it's a particular friend or exciting party, he'll go, if not, he'll choose training. He does sometimes cry when stretched but still wants to go. The girls do compete younger than the boys, but have to be 16 or turning 16 this year.

There was a woman competing for Uzbekistan the other day who was 41 . I was so impressed, she was so strong and talented. I groan when I get up off the sofa FFS.

Sorry for typos sleeping ill toddler on me

There was a woman competing for Uzbekistan the other day who was 41

She wasn't just there to make up the numbers either, she qualified for the final in the vault iirc

2 of the Chinese "girls" are 16 years old, the other is 20. One of the USA "women" is 16, Simone Biles is 19.

There are rules and age limits obviously, but the poor Chinese girls musty be forced

m.youtube.com/watch?v=4qYiSrFBeqk

None of those girls will have reached that level without wanting to be there.

For the USA, UK, Netherlands women and girls yes. I doubt that is always the case for the Chinese and Russian competitors.

I love watching the gymnastics. It must be amazing to do what they do. It is rare to see an older gymnast though.

I think that the Chinese athletes may feel a lot of responsibility (and they are young). China has such a massive population that getting to the Olympic team must be an astonishing achievement.

The 41 year old is Oksana Chusovitina and she's amazing! She's still one of the best vaulters in the world - and competed in her first Olympics before most of the current female gymnastics champions had even been born!

There's a great book called 'Little Girls in Pretty Boxes' that is quite old now but it is about what gym training used to be like in the days of Shannon Miller/Bela Karolyi etc. Really awful but interesting. I'd love to know if there was an updated version.

I worked with divers/gymnasts for a couple of years (adults) and they'd all trained for years as kids. They're making their living at it now, even into their 40s.

I thought the disparity between the US, GB etc and other western teams compared to the Chinese team was shocking.
Our team is full of impressively strong women who are obviously of an age where they can chose to compete. And I enjoyed watching them do so.
The Chinese girls barely looked like they were in double figures. Whether that is due to starving and over working them so they don't start puberty until they are 20+ or use drugs to do the same thing is a little irrelevant. It looks grotesque.

Desolate can you give a reference to back up your doubt please?

Or shall we just continue with our unsubstantiated prejudices? This thread is amazing

The American team looked like they were loving it.

China has a dreadful human rights record.
Granted I haven't done any research into the training of their gymnastics team but then I am passing a personal comment on a web forum, not giving evidence at a court of human rights.

Screaming in pain What sort of club is that. The stretching is done gradually and safely. The time commitment and training required is immense though, and many do drop out.

My daughter was at a Gym that trains right up to the top. A billion rec classes then invite only class after invite only class. My daughter got to the development squad at 5/6 ( they really do train them by that age) and was really enjoying it. Until she didn't - it was very much about being "good enough" to get to the next level of groups and they began to push her more. It wasn't for her but I can see for a girl who loved that approach it could well be. At 6 she was committed to the training, had to say no to birthday parties if at training times, had to tell them when we were going on holiday...... Then as they got older it got more to be more hours. I sometimes think we had a lucky escape. She only does an hour a week of rec (there's only that of you leave the competitive strand) and I retrospectively wish wed been at a less well known, more friendly local gym as she might have been able to keep it up at a less pressured pace.

Ethelb, they have to be 16 this year to compete. In team gb, Ellie downie has just turned 17 and Amy tinkler is 16.

I was just commenting on another thread how much more muscular they are now.

As for how "YOUNG" they are, I assume you were as horrified about Tom Daley and Ellie Symmonds at Beijing...?

There's a great book called 'Little Girls in Pretty Boxes' that is quite old now but it is about what gym training used to be like in the days of Shannon Miller/Bela Karolyi etc.

Bela Karloyi is now the coach of the US team.