But if a young athlete wants to become an elite gymnast and reach the Olympics, it's important to begin training at a young age. The University of Minnesota estimates that the average age of an Olympic gymnast on the U. In order to maximize training, develop strength and reach an Olympic level by the teen years, a gymnast should start training as a preschooler.
USA Gymnastics says that most children between the ages of 2 and 5 are developing their fundamental movement skills. Beginning gymnastics during these formative years will allow children to gain confidence while their bodies and muscles grow and develop. Most preschoolers are placed in gymnastics classes by age rather than ability, and as 2-year-olds and 3-year-olds they are expected to gain an awareness of their bodies and how they move.
Looking at the top graph below, we can see that UAE, Kuwait and Peru are at the top of the list, with an average age of athletes ranging from After this there is a significant drop to Saudi Arabia with an average age at Looking at the bottom graph, we can see that Botswana, Ghana and Grenada all have medallists with an average age under A common denominator for the countries on each side of the scale shows that they only contain one total medal each in the total data set.
Therefore, the sample size of medallists with extreme ages is much smaller than the majority, which makes it harder to draw conclusions from these results. To conclude, we have looked at the age of medallists between and in the Summer Olympics.
The study shows that women on average are one year younger than male medallists. When considering the average age per medallist, split by discipline, horse related events show the highest average age of a medallist.
On the other side of the spectrum, gymnastics has the youngest winning medallists. When we looked at all athletes, we identified that the widest range between two medallists was 48 years and for gold medals this range was 39 years.
Comparing the two biggest sports in the Olympics, on average Swimming sees younger medallists than Athletics. Finally, we have shown the countries that have produced the youngest and oldest medallists. Whilst some countries stood out, unfortunately the sample size makes it hard to draw any clear conclusions from this part of the study. Interests Basketball. Fantasy Football. Horse Racing. Ice Hockey. At the Mexico City Games, the median age was 20 years, 1 month.
It dropped to 18 years, 2 months, in Then it was in the 16s or 17s from through It was in the 18s in and , then the 19s in and For Tokyo, the U. Every member of the team is 18 or older for the first time since , according to Olympedia.
The and Olympics have some of the lowest ages in WAG history. Both Olympics were boycotted resulting in a significantly lower amount of gymnasts in attendance. A single team comprising entirely of abnormally young WAGs would have a greater impact on the data in a boycotted Olympics.
With fewer teams competing, the outlier teams have a greater impact on the data. I also made a second graphic which is the exact same data. The only difference is I put the Y-axis at age zero which may make it easier to visualize with less dramatic gradient changes.
The bulk of the decline in ages actually occurred prior to the arrival of Nadia Comaneci in A true discussion on the decline in ages must include the s. Both gymnasts placed in the bottom of the top, but had signaled the start of a trend.
For me personally, I consider the dual success of Konovalova and Latynina to be the first key event in the trend of declining ages.
Their success signaled a shift in the balance of power. Konovalova and Latynina were winning at an age where other Soviet WAGs typically started their respective careers. And soon after other gymnasts of the same profile Polina Astakhova would also find success. By the late s, the first innovative coaches had made the pivot to recruiting and training girls under the age of ten. In the early to mid s the first generation of gymnasts who had been trained in this fashion came of age.
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