The Orange County Register in 2004 researched an article on elite women’s artistic gymnastics. I’m suspicious of the questions posted.
How the investigation was put together
Over the past nine months, The Orange County Register was able to locate and attempted to contact 179 female gymnasts who competed for the U.S. national team from 1982 to 2004. The figure represents more than half of the roughly 300 women who competed on U.S. junior and senior women’s teams during this period …
Of those contacted, 122 agreed to be interviewed. The parents of four women who are either current or recent members of the U.S. junior team agreed to describe their daughters’ experiences and are included in the Register’s statistics.
In the first such survey among U.S. national team members, the women were asked:
Whether they had broken bones or injuries that required surgery during their careers. They were asked to list all such injuries and give their age at the time of the injury and the circumstances in which the injury occurred.
Whether they suffered broken bones or injuries that required surgery after ignoring warning signs.
Whether they returned to the sport after an injury against a doctor’s advice.
Whether a medical trainer was present in their gym during practice.
Whether they felt comfortable talking to their coaches about injuries.
Whether they had been criticized by their coaches for talking openly about their injuries.
Retired gymnasts also were asked to detail post-career health problems related to gymnastics.
Do you find the questions loaded?
Journalists do not have much incentive to publish good news.
The resulting article is shocking. I feel it is somewhat biased and alarmist, as well.
All artistic coaches should certainly read it: Gymnasts in pain: Out of balance , By SCOTT M. REID.
I won’t cite statistics in this blog post. Read them for yourself.
But the article gives many case studies of injuries. Then goes on to suggest they were caused by neglect and abuse. That coaches and administrators are to blame.
The journalist cites some stories (e.g. Kerri Strug and Christy Henrich) in a way I find deliberately incomplete.
NOW — I agree many of the top US girls have insufficient medical support. I completely agree that 36-40hrs / week is overtraining for almost every athlete.
I agree that some of the top coaches in the world are astonishingly poor at keeping their athletes healthy. (Look to Kelly Manjak, career coach of Olympic FX Champion Kyle Shewfelt, to see how to do that correctly.)
There is no way I would let SOME of the coaches mentioned in the article coach my own daughter.
But unlike the journalist, I blame the FIG rules for most of the problems. If anyone should have trouble sleeping through the night it should be the ladies of the FIG Women’s Technical Committee.
Are there injuries in FIG gymnastics amongst the top 120 girls and young women in the USA?
Absolutely.
Are they more severe than amongst NCAA Male and Female athletes? Than the FIG Male gymnasts in the USA?
I doubt it.
Gymnastics is a very, very difficult and demanding sport.
Do not aspire to compete at that level unless you know and respect the risks.
Please leave a comment below.
Gymnasts in pain: Out of balance , By SCOTT M. REID.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 