i found the gymnastics commentators last night (and several newspaper articles) to be really irritating.
one, asian girls can look very young. i remember the first time i went to meet the high school clients i was working with, i assumed one of them brought her little sister because the girl looked like she was 12 and was about half my size. turns out she was the 17 y/o plaintiff (about to turn 18).
two, in a country of how many people, you think it's so impossible to find a handful of women of below-average stature?
three, they keep talking about how china picks a ton of young kids and then raises them to be amazing gymnasts. doesn't it follow that they have a lot of gymnasts to choose from? if this is a sport that finds smaller sizes to perhaps be advantageous, they can just pick small people out of their litter of amazing gymnasts.
four, it doesn't make sense to assume that younger gymnasts don't know what pressure is. rather than being coddled girls rich enough for their families to put them through years of olympic training, the commentators have repeatedly talked about how poor children are identified as potential athletes and then sent off to train, because becoming successful could help their families a lot. sounds like a lot of pressure.
annoying.
Posted by rrc at August 13, 2008 06:34 PM