Category: ethics

safe, ethical spotting

In Canada we’ve long told coaches when spotting not to touch any part of the body covered by a bikini bathing suit. (Hips are an occasional exception.)

One gymnast messaged me to speak of her personal experience.

The Gym was her second home. As a little girl it was common for the coach to spot touching the buttocks of kids in her group.

By age 16 she became very uncomfortable with her coach spotting this way. She told him repeatedly to cut it out. He seemed unable to spot using any other technique.

Finally a less experience female coach was able to spot without grabbing the buttocks.

Here’s her message:

“… It is difficult to write about things that have become so normal and were never perceived as “wrong” by me. Coaches spot small girls on their bottoms from the very beginning, and this goes on as they get older. Almost maybe unaware of their own physical change and the innocence that goes paired with a coach following the way he spotted you from the very beginning. But the coach is the adult and especially at a higher level strong power relations can be involved.

Then suddenly you move to a new gym with new coaches and your eyes are opened. opening change… Something you thought to be impossible is suddenly is so easy. … the realization of the past kicks in. …

This is one of the many unintended consequences of spotting. The less spotting the better.

USAG responds to McKayla Maroney

“USA Gymnastics admires the courage of those, like McKayla Maroney, who have come forward to share their personal experiences with sexual abuse. Because of their strength in coming forward, predators can be held accountable for their actions. We, like so many others, are outraged and disgusted by the conduct of which Larry Nassar is accused. We are sorry that any athlete has been harmed during her or his gymnastics career.

“We are strengthening and enhancing our policies and procedures regarding abuse, as well as expanding our educational efforts to increase awareness of signs to watch for and reporting suspicions of abuse, including the obligation to immediately report. USA Gymnastics, its members and community are committed to working together to keep our athletes as safe as possible.”

USAG

SafeSport updates

If you are trying to make sense of recent accusations and denials online, click over to GymCastic.

Jessica puts together a summary at the 1 hour mark of the audiocast.

SafeSport updates about Dominque Moceanu, Mary Lou Retton, Michigan State, Jeena Nelson (a sex offender volunteering at Altius Gymnastics Club in Utah, not the one in WI) and 1992 Olympic Champion, Tatiana Gutsu has accused Vitaly Scherbo of rape.

277: Post-Worlds Therapy Session

McKayla Maroney molested by Nassar

Read her statement on twitter. #MeToo

training hours for new gymnasts

Coach Brittany posted her recommendations:

1st Year or ages 4-5
I recommend 4-6 hours per week and move to 9 hours by the end of that season or year.

2nd–3rd Year or ages 6-7
A this age and/or level of experience I suggest training 9-12 hours at 3-4 days per week.

3rd-4th Year or ages 7-8
I generally recommend 14-16 hours at a minimum of 4 times per week.

4th-5th Year or ages 8-9.
In the 4th-5th year I would recommend 20 hours per week, training 5 days per week.

Those look a bit high for me. Especially in year one and two. We typically do 4 hours a week the year before Grade 1. Six hours a week in Grade 1.

On the other hand, I’m not worried for children of this age. They love the sport, improve rapidly and have relatively few injuries. This is the “easy and fun” stage of the sport.

How Many Hours Should Pre-Competitive Gymnasts Be Training?

sadly … #MeToo has gone viral

Following a week of more devastating and disturbing news about film producer Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood actor Alyssa Milano took to social media to ask women to share their own personal experiences of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

In a message posted Sunday, she asked Twitter users to reply “me too” to her tweet if they had been sexually harassed or assaulted …

Mashable 

Tommie Smith and John Carlos 1968

It’s been 49 years since Tommie Smith and John Carlos decided to take political action – the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute. 

After having won gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter running event, they turned on the podium to face their flags, and to hear the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner“. Each athlete raised a black-gloved fist, and kept them raised until the anthem had finished. In addition, Smith, Carlos, and Australian silver medalist Peter Norman all wore human rights badges on their jackets.

In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Smith stated that the gesture was not a “Black Power” salute, but a “human rights salute”. …

The american sprinters Tommie Smith,John Carlos and Peter Norman during the award ceremony of the 200 m race at the Mexican Olympic games. During the awards ceremony, Smith and Carlos protested against racial discrimination: they went barefoot on the podium and listened to their anthem bowing their heads and raising a fist with a black glove. Mexico City, Mexico, 1968 Mexico city, Mexico, 1968

In a perfect world we would keep politics and sport separate.

Now age 72, John Carlos was interviewed – 50 years before Colin Kaepernick knelt, John Carlos raised his fist

Despite being ostracized and ridiculed, Carlos says it was worth it to bring attention to the oppression of people of colour.

teenage boys denied WAG High School team

There are increasing numbers of males competing WAG, females competing MAG.

But this is an issue not nearly resolved in 2017.

It isn’t that coaches at Connetquot High School and Commack High School are adverse to welcoming the boys. It’s because under Section 11 rules, a boy cannot compete in a girls sport if deemed he has too great a competitive advantage. …

Teenage Boys Fighting To Join HS Girls’ Gymnastics Teams

Sordid history of ‘The Big O’

Now that Morgan Hurd and the rest of the world survived Worlds Montreal, let’s talk about the Big O. It’s been called the “greatest white elephant of a stadium ever built“.

And it’s still under construction though the 1976 Olympic debt was finally repaid some years ago.

The roof has broken and been repaired many times over the years. Chunks have fallen.

Inside it’s a massive, confusing maze of dead end concrete space. The only way to get around efficiently is by bicycle or golf cart.

https://www.tumblr.com/irishdaniel/166176415543/kenzo-shirai

Judges and media had only 2 slow elevators to get to the field of play. After a week I finally found a random set of stairs and used those instead. It’s very easy to get lost.

Many have commented on how few washrooms are available in a complex that size. Eventually some Men’s toilets were switched to serve the ladies.

I was relieved there weren’t more problems.

So … I’m sure the City at various times considered tearing down The Big O. Personally, I’m glad they didn’t. It’s weirdly beautiful. And there are plenty of attractions nearby that I enjoy. Especially the new Gymnastics facility in the tower. A Gym was proposed way back in the late 1970s. The INS Gym will be a great resource in future.

If interested read more in The Guardian – The 40-year hangover: how the 1976 Olympics nearly broke Montreal

The Montreal Olympics left the city with a C$1.6bn debt, a string of corruption scandals, and a creeping sense of economic and social decline. Forty years on, how did the city survive?

On 17 July, with Queen Elizabeth, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and 73,000 people looking on, the Greek athletes who traditionally led the Parade of Nations came up the ramp toward the Olympic stadium to find their way almost blocked by construction workers.

Out of sight of the cameras and the throng inside the stadium, the staff were frantically wielding shovels and brooms to clear away the building debris left from the manic push to complete the facility on time. In the final scrambling months before the Games, 3,000 labourers had worked in teams 24 hours a day to make it possible for the Olympics to begin at all. They barely succeeded. …

The Olympics can no more run a deficit than a man can have a baby

(Mayor) Jean Drapeau, in 1970