There are certain aspects of the gymnastic codes that have led researchers to characterise these codes in particular ways. Many of these components are debated within gymnastics by participants as well as by external researchers. This chapter is a summary of ‘outsider’ accounts of gymnastics, predominantly by academics and journalists, many of whom have utilised sociologically traditional explanatory frameworks very different from the perspective used in the main body of this thesis in chapters three to eight.
The first section of this chapter examines the way in which women’s artistic gymnastics has been characterised as a problematic ‘child’ sport, potentially impinging on the rights of the child. Women’s artistic gymnastics is the code that has far and away received the greatest amount of academic and journalistic attention. As this chapter emphasises, the debate around whether high level gymnastics training is damaging for children commonly plays out with researchers and journalists external to the sport criticising its workings, and the athletes, coaches, judges and administrators involved in gymnastics defending it.
The second section moves from the work of journalists to academia in showing how several authors characterise the gymnast as an ideal example of Foucault’s “docile body” developed through the disciplined training in the institution of the gymnasium. Women’s gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, aerobics and mass gymnastics displays have all been examined through this lens.
The third section discusses the categorisation of artistic and rhythmic gymnastics as “feminine” sports. All codes of gymnastics, along with sports such as figure skating and synchronised swimming, are very commonly framed as feminine.
The fourth section notes how all the gymnastic codes are framed as potentially problematic and unfair due to the subjective judging system. Interestingly, unlike the framing of
gymnastics as a problematic ‘child’ sport, this debate does not play out as external researchers acting as critics and internal workers as defenders, rather, the researchers are both internal and external to gymnastics. As chapter seven demonstrates, the participants in the codes are equally concerned about the creation of fairness within the sport, therefore the literature and research described in this section is not framed by participants as unreasonable but as important and significant.
The final section examines how success or the lack of success in gymnastics and other high performance sports in New Zealand is explained as the result of organisational structure. The organisational structures of NZG/GSNZ, and their relationship with gymnastics clubs and regional bodies is examined, along with detailing how high performance sport in New Zealand is structured through SPARC and the NZOC.
Women’s Artistic Gymnastics as a “Child” Sport
“Chusovitina has defied conventional wisdom that gymnastics is a sport for teenagers. The only woman gymnast to appear at four Olympics, she has leaped over the age barrier…” (Kirschbaum, 2008, para. 10)
At the 2008 Olympic Games there were two prominent news stories surrounding the
gymnastics competitions, both of which focused on the age of two successful gymnasts. The most scandalous was the accusation that the gold medallist on uneven bars, He Kexin, was younger than the allowed age to compete at the Olympic Games. The second celebrated the success of Oxsana Chusovitina in winning her first individual Olympic medal at age 33, sixteen years after her first Olympic appearance in 1992. As described above by Kirschbaum (2008), Chusovitina was framed as an anomaly due to her age. The focus on the age of the gymnasts is not surprising, with women’s gymnastics commonly perceived as a sport dominated by young children.
Over the last two decades, women’s gymnastics has been criticised extensively for producing ‘little girls’ as successful athletes rather than adult women. In 1987, one of the earliest feminist accounts of sport that sat between a journalistic and critical feminist discourse, by Adrienne Blue, featured gymnastics. Blue entitled her chapter on gymnastics “The girls who don’t want to grow up”, arguing that the legacy of famous gymnasts Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci has led to the sport being “tainted” and “dangerous to life and limb” with countless gymnasts developing anorexia to stave off puberty (Blue, 1987, p. 156). Blue (1987)
compares the age of Korbut and Comaneci with the average age of the adult women gymnasts from previous decades, noting how previous gymnastic stars were in their mid-20s or 30s. As Kerr (2003, 2006) points out, the trend towards successful female gymnasts becoming younger began well before Korbut’s appearance in 1972 but nonetheless the fame of Korbut and Comaneci has led to the belief in the lowered age of successful gymnastics as attributed to them becoming prominent (see for example Donnelly, 2004).
Arguably the most influential text produced on any type of gymnastics is focused around the idea introduced by Blue (1987) of women’s gymnastics being a potentially damaging activity for children. Joan Ryan’s (1995) Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, a journalistic chronicle of the lives of a number of gymnasts and figure skaters, proved popular enough to be produced as a movie in 1997 and has been cited heavily in academic work since (see for example, Grenfell and Rinehart, 2003; Johnson, 1997; Millar, 2002; O’Connor, 1997). Ryan focuses on
gymnasts who have had negative experiences of elite women’s artistic gymnastics. She argues that female gymnasts and figure skaters are put under immense pressure to train hard at a young age in order to be successful before reaching puberty, arguing that a female body becomes less effective at gymnastics after this point. Using over 100 interviews plus her observations Ryan details the lives of various gymnasts who deal with injuries, eating disorders, politics and pressure from parents and coaches (Ryan, 1995, p. 14). Ryan (1995) espouses the view of women’s gymnastics as both physically and mentally damaging and calls for change in coaching and political practice.
Ryan’s view was legitimised by the authority of medical discourse. Through the 1990s, several studies examining women’s gymnastics were conducted and reached some damaging conclusions surrounding the intensive and lengthy training performed by gymnasts at a young age. For example, in 1996 the New England Journal of Medicine published an article entitled “Physical and Emotional Problems of Elite Female Gymnasts” (Tofler et al., 1996). The article focuses on the potential for inhibited growth and psychological damage that can result from the long hours of intensive training at a young age as experienced by many female artistic gymnasts. This article was followed by a number of further medical studies detailing health risks from participating in elite gymnastics training (see Caine et. al., 2001; Daly, Bass and Finch, 2001; Dresler et. al., 1997; O’Conner, Lewis and Boyd, 19966).
Sports science and medical discourses about gymnastics tend to be in opposition to those of coaches or gymnasts. Coaches often adopt a defensive attitude towards external scientists and demonstrate frustration that medical discourses tend to be considered of higher value than their own. It would be possible to argue that coaches adopt the discourse of sports scientists due to both groups having identical goals of creating successful athletes. However, as is described in detail in chapter six, there is a profound difference in the way the two groups operate. The disjunction between these two positions is examined in New Zealand in chapter six.
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According to these studies, gymnasts are at high risk of developing stunted growth, delayed puberty, eating disorders, psychological trauma as well as more ‘standard’ injuries such as broken bones.
Inspired by Ryan’s work and the medical literature, several other academic works have placed gymnastics in a negative light, quoting heavily from these sources (see for example, Johnson, 1997; Millar, 2002; O’Connor, 1997). As a result of this criticism, some participants ‘fought back’ in defence of gymnastics. Betty Okino, a US National team member, was inspired to write a magazine article in defence of gymnastics and her coaches’ training system in response to Ryan’s work (Okino, 2001). Okino (2001) framed Ryan as an ‘outsider’ without the knowledge to understand the reality of gymnastics training. Okino (2001) argued that it is very easy for spectators such as Ryan to criticise the harshness of gymnastics training as they do not have to compete under immense pressure in the manner of an elite athlete7. Similarly, high level gymnastics coach and sports scientist Bill Sands produced an article in a
gymnastics magazine in 1999 where he detailed the benefits of gymnastics. He discusses many of the possible problems in the sport as defined by Ryan, such as eating disorders and injuries, but cites academic studies in concluding that the incidence of these problems is no higher than in most high level sports (Sands, 1999a). Michel Leglise (1997), vice-president of the FIG and head of the FIG Medical Committee, produced a summary of the medical factors that affect gymnasts in his introductory statement for a medical symposium in 1997, where he focused on the lack of any long term damage sustained by gymnastics. These examples show how participants in gymnastics are aware of the criticisms of their sport and take deliberate steps to counteract them. This thesis shows how in New Zealand, participants in all codes draw on and debate these issues and consequently these ideas directly influence the way the gymnastics codes operate.
As both a medical professional and a member of the FIG Executive Committee, Michel Leglise has been particularly fervent in attempting to counteract gymnastics’ negative associations. One of the central concerns which Leglise has attempted to address is the long hours trained at a young age and the consequent ‘ruining’ of childhood, as focused on by Ryan (1995). Ryan emphasises the issue of age and childhood by comparing gymnastics to other sports. She notes how unlike in the majority of sports, women’s gymnasts reach the peak of their career during their teenage years, and explains this by arguing that a pre- pubescent body type has an advantage in women’s gymnastics:
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Betty Okino was coached by Bela Karolyi, arguably one of the most successful gymnastics coaches of all time. Karolyi coached Olympic Champions Nadia Comaneci (1st in 1976 and 2nd in 1980) and Mary Lou Retton (1st 1984) and World Champion Kim Zmeskal (1st 1991). He has long been a controversial figure in women’s gymnastics owing to his forceful personality and huge success. Ryan (1995) singles out Karolyi as one the worst of the abusive coaches in the USA, so Okino was strongly motivated to defend him and his methods. She described how it was only the hard training she went through that allowed her not to fall apart the moment she competed at the World Championships and Olympic Games.
These girls aren’t allowed passage into adulthood. To survive in sports, they beat back puberty, desperate to stay small and thin, refusing to let their bodies grow up… The physical skills have become so demanding that only a body shaped like a missile… can excel. Breasts and hips slow the spins, lower the leaps and disrupt the clean, lean, body lines that judges reward. (Ryan, 1995, p. 7)
The FIG, led by Michel Leglise, responded to this concern by creating and then raising a minimum age for gymnasts. An age limit for women’s gymnastics was first introduced in the mid 1990s and as of 2009 was set at a minimum of 16 years of age to compete at the Senior International, or Open level. In 2007, Leglise released the below figures demonstrating the large change in age that had resulted in women’s gymnastics throughout this period as a result of the age restrictions:
AGE AVERAGE WOMEN'S ARTISTIC COMPETITIONS 1994 - 2006
WAG
Gymnasts
WOMEN's Ø AGE MEN's Ø AGE
1994 Brisbane 88 16.49 20.80 1995 Sabae 195 16.57 22.73 1996 Puerto Rico 96 17.13 22.42 1997 Lausanne 149 17.43 22.81 1999 Tianjin 260 16.85 21.94 2000 Sydney 98 17.58 21.30 2001 Ghent 172 17.72 21.85 2002 Debrecen 80 17.76 22.62 2003 Anaheim 223 17.37 22.71 2004 Athens 98 17.46 24.34 2005 Melbourne 95 18.27 22.19 2006 Aarhus 237 18.10 22.60
Table 2.1 Average age of women’s artistic gymnasts at World and Olympic Competitions 1994 – 2006, Leglise (2007)
Although this table shows the arguably adult average age of 18 years in 2005 and 2006, the sport has difficulty escaping the criticism of being dominated by young girls. As noted earlier,
at the 2008 Olympic Games, one scandal centred on an accusation that the champion on uneven bars, China’s He Kexin, was only 14 years of age, while 32 year old medallist Oxsana Chusovitina was framed as an anomaly. The FIG and IOC determined that they had been supplied with sufficient evidence to prove He Kexin was 16 as required, however the allegation only confirmed the perception of gymnastics as a sport dominated by young girls.
Due to the long training hours required during adolescence in women’s artistic gymnastics in order to reach their peak by around 18 years of age, issues around coping with school, training and peer relationships have also been of interest to researchers. Weiss (2000) contrasts gymnasts in the USA with other high school athletes. She highlights how gymnasts begin training at an unusually early age and often have their career peak during adolescence, rather than as an adult (Weiss, 2000, p. 191). She also observes that gymnastics tends to be a sport where training takes place at a private club, rather than as part of school culture, in great contrast to a sport such as American football (Weiss, 2000). Again in contrast to football, where the team are the “stars” of the school, gymnasts do not tend to gain great recognition from their high school (Weiss, 2000, p. 192). Donnelly’s (1993) discussion of young high performance athletes, which examines family, coach and social relationships, educational, psychological and physical problems, politics and retirement, includes a disproportionately large sample of gymnasts who experience similar social problems as described by Weiss.
The assumption that the gymnast will have “problems” (Tofler et. al., 1996; Donnelly, 1993) as a result of their training is understandable when the number of training hours is considered. In New Zealand, gymnasts training towards a future in high performance are encouraged to train upwards of 20 hours per week from around age ten, with some coaches arguing that even this is not sufficient. One gymnast in New Zealand was training 32 hours per week at age eight, a schedule that coaches argue to be normal in the most successful gymnastics nations. This is a situation that coaches, parents and gymnasts do not agree on. As sociologist of childhood, Turmel (2008), points out, it is not considered acceptable in most Western societies for children to engage in this many hours of solid activity: “What children are supposed to do is play and learn” (Turmel, 2008, p. 54). This is confirmed by sociologists Grenfell and Rinehart (2003, p. 93) who, in examining figure skating, describe how children “need to play and move”. The disciplined nature of gymnastics training is assumed to be far different from “play” and regarded as closer in nature to a type of work and viewed as unacceptable for young children, who are generally assumed to be better off with a “play” orientated childhood. Even sports where it is only teenagers, not pre-teens, training
intensively, have been the target of criticism. For example, in Australia, the head of a talent search programme that identifies talented high school age children and seeks to channel them
into training intensively describes how her programme comes under immense criticism for taking “choice” away from children (cited in Green & Oakley, 2001, p. 259).
Donnelly (2004) cites the victory of 14 year old gymnast Nadia Comaneci in 1976 and the subsequent worldwide adoption of Eastern bloc training methods as setting off the trend towards intensive training at a young age. He describes how scientists noted the rewards to be achieved from talent identification and sport specialisation at an early age, but that by the early 1980s, commentators had begun to describe child high performance athletes as “child athletic workers” participating in “child labour” (Cantelon, 1981, cited in Donnelly, 2004, p. 312). Donnelly (2004) describes a long list of traits he believes to be shared by children in high performance programmes and child labourers8. Similarly, Grenfell and Rinehart (2003, p. 94) raise concerns about the immense psychological pressure placed on young high performance skaters by parents and coaches and question whether long training hours are the “appropriate physical prescription” for young children.
This thesis does not explore whether high performance gymnastics training acts as either a positive or negative contribution to a child’s development. However, it shows how the view that long training hours are a negative thing for children is one shared by many parents, and some coaches and administrators. For example, in one interview a coach was so determined to defend gymnastics against the notion of gymnastics producing unhealthy, apparently
anorexic, children that he began his interview by saying:
…everyone thinks that gymnasts are anorexic and skinny and things like that but actually, we select by saying if you’re tall, you’re going to be a netball player, if you’re short, you’re going to be a gymnast. And I just wanted to clear that up at the beginning because people have that perception of gymnastics. (Liam)
The many hours of training are also introduced by participants as reasons for different levels of success by different athletes in different codes. In chapters four and eight, it is noted how each code includes a different training schedule and number of training hours. This thesis explores how these different training hours are believed to influence the success experienced by New Zealand gymnasts in these codes, the arrangement of clubs in offering these classes and on whether parents choose to enrol their children in these types of classes.
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Donnelly (2004, p. 312) describes how children in high performance programmes: “are not permitted to be children, are denied important social contacts and experiences, are victims of disrupted family life, are exposed to excessive psychological and physiological stress, may experience impaired intellectual development, may become so involved with sport that they become detached from the larger society or face a type of abandonment on completion of their athletic careers”.
The Gymnasium as a Disciplinary Institution
Moving to purely academic accounts of gymnastics, several authors interested in competitive gymnastics and related forms of gymnastic movements, such as aerobics and mass gymnastic displays, have utilised the work of Foucault to examine these practices. These authors are also focused on the body, but they interpret the creation of the gymnast as the production of a docile body developed through the disciplinary regimes of surveillance and self monitoring, incorporating mechanisms such as the timetable.
One of Foucault’s most influential and extensively utilised ideas is “Panopticism”. Foucault (1991) was inspired by Jeremy Bentham’s prison design of the “Panoptican”, which consisted of a central tower looking out over the cell block/s where the inmates could be observed but unable to tell whether they were being observed at that moment. Foucault (1991) argued that