USA vs China girls Gymnastics

[ssgtam08 0]

I am as pro-American as anyone and I hardly even watch the Gymnastics in the olympics before this year but I guess I dont see why we (USA) just cant lose cause the Chinese are better. The Karoly's (sp) get in front of a camera ever since there 2nd place finish and complain about the age of the chinese or the scoring or that the one girl was delayed from getting on the beam...

Do I think the chinese girls look 16? No of course I don't but what does it matter really. Do we have some 14 year old gymnast we are holding back cause of age...I mean all the hype was this was our best team ever. I was impressed with there flips and stuff it was cool. And it sucks for the USA that the girl fell off the beam but hey she was doing like a sping flip thing onto 4 inch board....sometimes your going to fall....Then like if you try a super 3 sumersault flip thing you are going to land on your butt sometimes.....Its not like it went down to scoring like 1 kid got 9.76 and another got 9.77 one kid fell doing something really hard and another fell less. The US girl falling has nothing to do with the age of the chinese girl.

The female karoly lady kept calling the chinese girls "little babies"...I mean get over it and be happy your girls did all that stuff in the first place.....They were more upset they couldnt get away with breaking the rules...Not once did either of the karoly's say "They were better" the US gymnast did though (the girl who did really well and dad was a gymnast).

Now there is something to be said for the chinese taking the kids out of day care at 3 and take them to training but its all relative...I mean we are making some teenage girl feel like a loser cause she made a mistake and couldnt do a sumersault onto a beam one time. I might be totally ignorant on China but taking a kid to a training facility paid for by the gov't and I think they pay the parents and training her for olympics is better then ending up in some sweatshop or living in extreme poverty.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

I like how you think brother

And you are right never mind the age, the Chinese gymnasts were superior. Those performances were almost perfection.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

Yup. China was awesome, what can you say?

To be honest, I'm not sure if Bela Karolyi was sitting in judgment about the age thing, though. He did bring it up, but I wasn't sure what his point was. Did he mean that if 13-year-old Americans could have qualified, the U.S. would have had a better shot? I'm not sure. Of course, he was Nadia Comaneci's coach in the 70s, and she was 14 when she scored all those perfect 10s in Montreal--maybe he did mean that being younger would be an advantage. But if he was being judgmental, like, "those poor young girls!" then he's a hypocrite, as is his old lady.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think the judging system in the games is needlessly harsh, but I suppose it needs to be at that level of performance.

At least in the first day of gymnastics competition there wasn't one of the US girls who didn't make a major mistake. Call it nerves or what have you - but I don't think they recovered from that. The Chinese were consistently better.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I think the issue was the girls should not be allowed to compete because the minimum age for this olympics is 16 in gymnastics

the reason they changed the minimum age is because girls tend to be better gymnasts before they reach puberty, and younger and younger girls were being pushed into intensive training

[Lansbury 19]

I think the issue was the girls should not be allowed to compete because the minimum age for this olympics is 16 in gymnastics

Can I correct that slightly. They have to be 16 in the year the Olympics are held. One of the Chinese girls is actually 15 but will be 16 later this year.

They won because on the day they were the best.

[Yiyi and Chris 0]

China was incredible, waaay superior, but i must admit that it hurt when USA got the silver...

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

I think the issue was the girls should not be allowed to compete because the minimum age for this olympics is 16 in gymnastics

Can I correct that slightly. They have to be 16 in the year the Olympics are held. One of the Chinese girls is actually 15 but will be 16 later this year.

They won because on the day they were the best.

I know that - but there was (apparently) paperwork from other competitions suggesting they were as young as 14. The gap of 2 years is huge in womens gymnastics.

I wouldn't deny the Chinese team were better - the US girls did not deserve to win with those mistakes.

[ssgtam08 0]

I know about the puberty thing but if I am not mistaken dont even the USA girls do things to prevent puberty things like if you dont gain weight somehow you dont have a period....I mean really whats healthier and more likely a 4'7 chinese 15 year old or a 4'10 american 17 year old....I mean the US girl who fell her dad is like a foot taller then her and her mom is taller then her too.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

intense physical training delays puberty in girls, but usually only for so long

it's interesting to compare pictures of nadia from 1976 olympics and the 1978 worlds to see what a difference 2 years makes

Edited August 13, 2008 by rkl57

[Staashi 371]

The one thing that they say comes with age and why the age difference does matter, is that someone who might be 12 or 14 years old doesn't recognize the pressure of the situation, doesn't have a mindset of maturity and the overall impact of their performance, so their performances are superior because their nerves aren't shot.

China's team was amazing...but I do think there is something totally shady going on.

[IAMX 3,055]

I wanna see how midgets would do here.

[baxxy 0]

The one thing that they say comes with age and why the age difference does matter, is that someone who might be 12 or 14 years old doesn't recognize the pressure of the situation, doesn't have a mindset of maturity and the overall impact of their performance, so their performances are superior because their nerves aren't shot.

China's team was amazing...but I do think there is something totally shady going on.

I've heard this before and I agree 100%, up to 14 one still thinks like a child and doesn't really have a grasp on how important the olympics is.

[Ban Hammer 13,098]

I wanna see how midgets would do here.

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

This is turning into the Olympic gymnastics reality show. At that point I turn the ####### off.