King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Olympics: It's time for women's gymnastics to grow up. Plus: LeBron James shows that the NBA way takes your breath away. And: More.
Aug. 18, 2004 | Bela Karolyi, who has handed off his bizarro Svengali powers over the U.S. women's gymnastics team to his wife, Marta, said that Tuesday night's team gymnastics competition was the best he'd seen in 20 years. OK, if he says so.
I tried to get caught up in the drama of the little Romanians hitting their routines in clutch fashion to beat out the little Americans, but I'm finding that the older I get, the less I can stand to watch women's gymnastics.
"I'm happy because these children have a crown, a medal," said Romanian coach Octavian Belu, and I'm happy for them too, because it's nice when happy times come for abused kids. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant to say dedicated, hard-working youngsters.
I was happy to see a couple of 25-year-olds prominent in the team finals, Mohini Bhardwaj of the United States and Svetlana Khorkina of bronze-winning Russia. Of course, both are considered freakish for still being Olympic gymnasts at that advanced age. The Americans even have a 26-year-old, vault specialist Annia Hatch.
Bhardwaj, unwelcome in the little-girls-only world of official gymnastic training, famously had to pay her own way over the last few years, at one point enlisting financial help from Pamela Anderson, which I mention only for the sake of page views.
Even with those two old birds, Bhardwaj and Hatch, the average age of the U.S. team is 19 and a half. This is a problem. A sport in which women become washed up years before they reach their athletic prime is a sport that needs redesigning. A sport that supposedly emphasizes strength and athleticism, among other things, but for which you're in trouble if you tip the scales in triple digits and you're just about disqualified if you top 115 is a sport that needs fixing.
Enough with the pretty little girls. This stuff might have been OK when athletic opportunities for girls were severely limited, but women can be and are real athletes on the world stage now. The U.S. women's basketball team has an average age of a little over 28, and the youngest player, Diana Taurasi, is 22. The soccer team averages just under 28, and its youngest member is 19-year-old Heather O'Reilly.
Both teams skew a bit old, but not outrageously so, and they're both gold medal contenders. You get a bunch of great athletes together and these are the ages you tend to find, mid- to late 20s. If you're years into retirement age for a sport at that age, then it's a children's sport and should be reconfigured for adult bodies when grown-ups play. Think T-ball and baseball.
