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Originally Posted by Not Afraid
Although, Karolyi has been VERY outspoken about the obviously younger than 15 girls on the China team.
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True, but only because the U.S. team observed the limit. His solution is to get rid of minimum age requirements. His complaint isn't so much that China used 14 year olds but that we didn't get to.
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Then he offered a solution: "The only way to stop this is to take off the age limit," he said. "Take it away. We would have some amazing young athletes on our team, too, but they missed it by a few months. To force honest countries to hold back and allow other countries, not so honest, to push them forward, it's not fair."
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I agree that if Olympic gymnastics is going to emphasize skills best done by 12 year olds then they should allow 12 year olds to do it. The real answer, though, is to change the sport to once again emphasize skills best done by adults. In my view, if a 13 year old can compete globally in your sport then you haven't so much created a sport as a playground game.