Category: safety

Rachel Nickens, a doctoral candidate in sociology and a USA Gymnastics coach and judge, spent a year observing training sessions and competitions, and conducted in-depth interviews at three gyms with 20 gymnasts ages 11 to 17 in Junior Olympics levels eight, nine and 10.

The interviews were part of a larger ethnographic study on youth gymnastics. Nickens also drew on data from another 18 interviews with adolescent male gymnasts, coaches and parents.

Nickens will present her study, “Not Just ‘Little Girls in Pretty Boxes’: The Everyday Experiences of Adolescent Female Gymnasts” in Philadelphia at the 113th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association …

… when gymnasts define and explain their athletic participation, they mostly talk about practice, teamwork, the joy of physicality, and the reward of overcoming challenges and fears. While they define themselves as gymnasts, they also define themselves as athletes and students, friends and leaders.”

Nickens said that at the moderately high level, gymnastics might not be all that different from any other sport—both in its rewards and in its challenges.

Despite olympic gymnastics’ woes, sport is mostly positive for teen girls

(link fixed)

There is a group of people I refer to as the burn it all down crowd.

They believe Gymnastics is intrinsically harmful for girls. (They mostly ignore male gymnasts.)

That’s nonsense, of course. There’s no sport which rewards participants as richly in motor and physical fitness. For girls in particular, competitive Gymnastics is a great way to grow up. It seems to me gymnasts are disproportionately successful in later life compared with other sports. The discipline and persistence transfers. Gymnasts consistently get some of the best grades amongst NCAA sports.

As coaches we need maximize the benefits, minimize the risks for all our athletes.

Thanks Jim.

Both state that USAG has never reached out personally to apologize and/or offer help.

Lawyers must be advising no apology.

You have to agree with Miss Val that the Karoli’s program was a culture of fear. Silence. Winning at all costs.

Watch the entire interview on CBS This Morning.

I do like them using the word ETHICS as it includes much more than just protecting athletes from predators.

The creation of this new structure, called the “Gymnastics Ethics Foundation”, will be put to a vote of the FIG’s national member federations at the next Congress, to be held in Baku (AZE) on 2-3 December 2018. …

According to the Constitution of the Foundation, it will have responsibility for:

– monitoring the good governance and ethical principles of the FIG;

– managing disciplinary procedures;

– safeguarding athletes and other participants in Gymnastics from harassment and abuse. …

The Foundation will be made up of three sections:

– A Safeguarding section, including a helpdesk for reporting any case of harassment or abuse. This section will be responsible for carrying out an initial assessment of any complaints, accusations and facts reported. It will also provide legal support if needed.

– A Disciplinary section which will include the two disciplinary bodies already in place, the Disciplinary Commission and Appeal Tribunal.

– A Compliance section to monitor good governance and ethical principles of the FIG.

FIG