Gymnastics small fish to fry
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BEIJING -- Bart Conner, a 1984 Olympic gymnastics gold medalist for the United States, thinks the age controversy involving the Chinese female gymnasts is being misinterpreted.
There have been several recent media reports, including one by The Times’ Diane Pucin, that detail conflicting evidence about the birth dates of two members of the gold-medal Chinese team, suggesting they actually are below the minimum age limit -- 16 in the calendar year of the competition.
The United States was second in Wednesday’s team competition.
‘It is insinuating that younger is better,’’ Conner said, ‘but it’s not like we left home a lot of 15-year-olds who could beat those Chinese kids. I marvel at how good the Chinese have become at such a young age. It’s remarkable.’’
There is talk of raising the age limit to give the sport called artistic gymnastics a more artistic image, based on the idea that older women (OK, girls) would have more grace in their routines. Conner thinks that isn’t the solution.
‘It would be better to change the rules,’’ Conner said. ‘We want to see daredevil acrobatics, and it is much easier for young, small girls to do that. If the technical demands weren’t as high, you would have more ‘womanly’ gymnastics.’’
This debate has been going on, incidentally, since Conner’s wife, Nadia Comaneci of Romania, dazzled the world as a 14-year old ‘perfect 10’’ pixie for the scores she got while winning three gold medals the 1976 Olympics. (By the way: The idea of 10 as the ultimate rating spawned a movie, ‘10,’’ in which a very womanly Bo Derek was the ideal of female perfection.)
Comaneci inspired a generation of little girls -- including eventual 1984 Olympic champion Mary Lou Retton -- to try gymnastics and led coaches to think that small was better.
In 1976, the six women who competed for the United States in the Olympic team event were an average age of 17.5, average height of 5 feet 3 1/4 and average weight of 106 pounds. By 1992, the U.S. women’s team averages were age 16, height 4-9 1/2 and weight 83.
Sixteen years later, the debate is the same.
-- Philip Hersh
