While this may not seem like a big deal, I assure you, training at an Olympic level at such a young age can really take its toll on an adolescent girl. If young gymnasts aren’t properly developing physically in preparation for the Olympics, then we need to raise the minimum age requirement for Olympic Women’s Gymnastics. To begin, we need to raise the minimum age requirement for Women’s Olympic gymnastics because girls training this hard at such a young age physically develop later than others in their age group. With any high intensity sport such as track, cross country, or gymnastics, girls in particular experience puberty differently than a girl who does less intensive sports. Girls training for gymnastics that plan to go to the Olympics, are training every day, for sometimes up to 6 hours a day, this begins when the girl is about 5 years old. This training can cause an array of developmental issues, such as not growing as tall as intended. Many people assume that gymnasts are scouted out for gymnastics because they’re short, but it’s actually the other way around. Some just call them ‘little
While this may not seem like a big deal, I assure you, training at an Olympic level at such a young age can really take its toll on an adolescent girl. If young gymnasts aren’t properly developing physically in preparation for the Olympics, then we need to raise the minimum age requirement for Olympic Women’s Gymnastics. To begin, we need to raise the minimum age requirement for Women’s Olympic gymnastics because girls training this hard at such a young age physically develop later than others in their age group. With any high intensity sport such as track, cross country, or gymnastics, girls in particular experience puberty differently than a girl who does less intensive sports. Girls training for gymnastics that plan to go to the Olympics, are training every day, for sometimes up to 6 hours a day, this begins when the girl is about 5 years old. This training can cause an array of developmental issues, such as not growing as tall as intended. Many people assume that gymnasts are scouted out for gymnastics because they’re short, but it’s actually the other way around. Some just call them ‘little