It was another typical night at the Davis household in San Francisco. (Warning, if you read this blog post, you may get a glimpse inside my family life.) My parents are interesting folks. I really love them a lot, but sometimes they, and particularly my dad Russell, can be, ummm…. rather opinionated. ( I have two dads. My father in Venezuela, who I hope to see later this year in October, is completely different than my American dad. I guess my mom went from one extreme to the other. ) On Friday night I found myself at my parents’ sharing with them the experience of watching the Olympic Games and Michael Phelps win his 17th gold medal in the 100M Butterfly. We also watched
Katie Ledecky crush the field in the 800M women’s freestyle. The girl is only 15 years old. “It sure is stupid that they have the minimum age for competing in the Olympics as 15!” he muttered. “No it’s not.” I retorted. “There’s a good reason for that.” “And what could that possibly be?” was his reply. “Well, to prevent child abuse!” Having experience coaching kids, I know that parents and coaches can be overbearing enough and put enough pressure on a child to cross the line into child abuse. My dad disagreed. He made a good case about the rule preventing a gymnast like Alexandra Raisman from having more than “one shot at it” because she wasn’t eligible to compete in the last Olympics at age 14 and that she’d be too old to be competitive at age 22. “There are plenty of gymnasts in their 20’s.”, I replied. “Not at a competitive level.”, he assured me. I disagreed. I knew, however, that none of the Fab Five were over 20 years old, and I didn’t know the gymnasts from the other countries, but I challenged him to a bet. I was initially thinking a pint of ice-cream. (Most of you know that I’m not paleo, but I am trying to eat more vegetables!) and later I tried to angle for climbing shoes, but since my dad couldn’t think of what he wanted as a counter-bet, since he already has everything. So in the end we settled for $100. I think the results are interesting since they address the question “How old is too old to compete at the highest level?”, or at least for female Olympic gymnasts with… errr… good teammates.USA: 5 teenagers
Jordyn Wieber: 17 y/o
Gabrielle Douglass: 16 y/o
Kyla Ross: 15 y/o
Alexandra Raisman: 18 y/o
Mc Kayla Maroney: 16 y/o
Russia: 4 teenagers & 1 20 y/o
Ksenia Afanaseva: 20 y/o: ranked 8th on beam & 11th on floor out of 24 scores
Anastasia Grishina: 16 y/o
Victoria Komova: 17 y/o
Aliya Mustafina: 17 y/o
Maria Paseka: 17 y/o
Romania: 3 teenagers, a 22 y/o & a 24 y/o
Diana Laura Bulimar: 16 y/o
Diana Maria Chelaru: 18 y/o
Larisa Andreea Iordache: 16 y/o
Sandra Raluca Izbasa: 22 y/o ranked 8th on vault & 2nd on floor out of 24 scores
Catalina Ponor: 24 y/o ranked 8th on vault, 1st on beam & 5th on floor out of 24 scores
China: 1 teenager & 4 20 y/o’s
Lu Sui: 20 y/o ranked 2nd on beam & 8th on floor
Jinnan Yao: 17 y/o
Qiushuang Huang: 20 y/o ranked 10th on vault, 7th on bars, 16th on beam & 23rd on floor
Kexin He: 20 y/o ranked 2nd on bars
Linlin Deng: 20 y/o ranked 11th on vault, 17th on beam & 19th on floor
Canada: 4 teenagers & 1 20 y/o
Victoria Moors: 15 y/o
Dominique Pegg: 18 y/o
Kristina Vaculik: 20 y/o ranked 16th on bars & 20th on beam
Elsabeth Black: 16 y/o
Brittany Rogers: 19 y/o
Great Britain:
Imogen Cairns: 23 y/o ranked 22nd on vault & 18th on beam
Jennifer Pinches: 18 y/o
Rebeca Tunney: 15 y/o
Elizabeth Tweddle: 27 y/o ranked 1st on bars and 15th on floor out of the field of 24.
Hannah Whelan: 20 y/o ranked 19th on bars, 15th on beam & 14th on floor
Italy & Japan also had athletes older than 20, which rounded out the last two countries that made it to the finals. So as you can see, the field was dominated by teens, but there were plenty of athletes in their 20’s on the top 7 women’s team with 24 year old Catalina Ponor ranking 1st on beam and 27 year old Elizabeth Tweddle ranking 1st on bars! Among the top 6 teams there were no athletes in their 30’s. It would be interesting to do a similar analysis of the ages of competitive CrossFit Games athletes or American Ninja Warriors. Admittedly elite gymnastics takes a strong toll on the body which wears on older athletes, but an even stronger consideration as a factor is that many athletes who have had that Olympic experience are often satisfied with having had it and moving on to other concerns and stages of life. In any case, I have $100 that I’ll soon be using to buy a new pair of climbing shoes! Thanks Dad!
