Restrictive dress codes, penalties for showing emotion and a ban
on fixing wedgies.
Olympic gymnasts must be perfect to win gold,
but they also have to follow some pretty strange rules.
It's obvious that Olympic level gymnastics is an intense sport
that demands not just top physical conditioning and endless hours
of practice,
but also determination and a steely desire to win it
all.
Few other disciplines expect competitors to keep it together to
quite the same degree,
however. This rule is specifically outlined in a couple of
places in the
2023-2024 Rules and Policies for Women's Artistic Gymnastics as determined
by USA Gymnastics.
The section titled Athlete Members Rights and Obligations contains that
competitors must accept their score without criticism or comment.
What's more, they had better hold it together if they
get hurt and especially if their routine does not go
according to plan.
Of course, emotional and mental resilience is a big deal
in the sport.
USA Gymnastics and other major gymnastics organizations routinely urge both
athletes and coaches to deal with the high tension emotions
of the sport in controlled and healthy ways.
Meanwhile, British Olympic gymnast Joe Frazier told the Olympics that
he routinely deals with difficult feelings to the point of
tears.
But even though grades like Simone Biles have been open
about their fears and tragic real life stories,
you will very rarely see them betray their emotions in
the midst of competing.
While it may seem like all eyes are on artistic
gymnastics,
don't forget the other major component of the Olympic competition,
rhythmic gymnastics. Of course, if you ask anyone in the
industry,
the rhythmic portion is hardly for slouches.
The discipline combines both dance and artistic gymnastics and uses
5 different props,
rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon.
But even world class gymnasts can have moments where they
stumble or lose their grip.
So what's a rhythmic gymnast to do when a hoop
goes flying out of her fingers mid competition,
or that elegant ribbon gets knotted,
or even caught up in a rafter?
Olympic rules dictate that if there's a mishap with the
prop,
the gymnast can't restart the exercise.
In other words, the show must go on.
And according to the International Gymnastics Federation rules,
they have to communicate feeling with a facial expression while
doing this.
So even if a ball goes flying,
you must continue smiling. Olympic rules specify that a gymnast
may get a replacement prop,
but that will incur a relatively hefty one point penalty.
If she drops an apparatus,
that's another penalty ranging from 1/2 point to one point
deduction,
depending on how many steps she takes to retrieve it.
The reality of gymnastics is that much of the sport
is about appearances.
Judges may be looking for technical achievements,
such as the predetermined difficulty of a move,
or clear mistakes like whether or not an athlete steps
out of bounds.
But they will also be considering more subjective things like
the elegance of a routine or the intensity of a
gymnast's movement, neither of which are judging tasks that come
with a clear rubric.
Then there's the fashion. It's not just that gymnastics competitions
include an array of eye-catching attire.
Judges are also looking out for dress code violations.
While such a Ding may be annoying for a high
schooler,
it could knock off enough points that an athlete is
left longingly staring at the metal podium because of an
errant bra strap.
As US gymnast Nestia Lukan told People ahead of the
2016 Olympics,
most athletes wear underwear, but they're careful to select shades
that blend with their skin tone and and check that
nothing shows.
It's not just potentially embarrassing.
Visible underwear really can spell a deduction.
Some athletes even reportedly get custom underwear made to help
ensure that these garments remain hidden.
That makes sense given that leotards are also typically custom
designed for these elite athletes who are competing at a
level where mere decimal points can stand between them and
a gold medal. Highly designed as they may be,
the leotards of Olympic gymnasts may still present the all
too real issue of a mid competition wedgie.
And though you may pick yours out in discreet fashion,
depending on the exact social situation and just how bad
the wedgie in question is,
elite competitors are often on the world stage.
Simply reaching down and fixing the issue isn't necessarily an
option when you have millions of pairs of eyes upon
you.
It's not just a matter of social decorum that keeps
Olympic gymnasts from readjusting their leotards.
Multiple sources have claimed that doing so can result in
a very real points deduction.
And who wants to lose out on a medal because
they couldn't let a wedgie be?
Writing for the New York Times,
Leah and Scarpa says that it would result in a
2/10 deduction at her state gymnastics meet,
while Lukan told people that similar penalties would happen at
the Olympics.
Lukan mentioned that athletes sometimes use adhesive sprays to keep
everything in place.
Meanwhile, Scarpa more directly blamed sexism and objectification for putting
female gymnasts in that uncomfortable position in the 1st place.
That objectification can be damaging.
For instance, while it's not an official rule,
it is a commonly accepted convention that athletes should compete
in long sleeved but legless leotards.
When German gymnasts competed in long legged unitards at the
2021 Olympics, they openly said that they did so in
response to entrenched sexism in the sport.
Simone Biles often times presents a serious quandary for gymnastics
judges.
She is in such a stratospheric realm of excellence that
it can be difficult to judge her work in relation
to others who,
despite years of training and dedication,
can't take the title away from Biles.
More specifically, Biles has attempted moves so difficult that some
adjudicators have felt the need to under score her work.
Take her 2019 performance in the US National Championships,
where she completed not one but two incredibly complicated moves.
The first, now known as the Biles Two,
garnered a difficulty rating of J,
which is currently the highest such rating.
Yet it came as a surprise that another move,
known as the Biles was given a difficulty of age.
The justification, according to officials,
was a giving it a more valuable difficulty score could
encourage less able gymnasts to attempt the move and risk
serious injury.
And Biles vaults really can be that dangerous.
But critics have wondered if this is really meant to
keep other gymnasts safe,
or if it's a sort of sour grapes reaction.
Ultra talented athletes like Biles.
In other words, if Biles often utterly blasts the competition
out of the water,
perhaps the judges were motivated to level the playing field
via new rules.
If a gymnast or their coach isn't satisfied with the
score,
they're free to openly question the results,
so long as they're willing to pay up.
After all of the money that goes into making an
Olympic gymnast from training to travel to those expensive leotards,
officially challenging a ruling means that a team official must
potentially pay hundreds of dollars.
At the 2016 Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro,
the going rate was $300.00 for the first challenge,
followed by $500.00 for a second and
$1000 if a truly dedicated team went in for a
third review.
Previously, coaches would have to pony up real cash.
But by the Games in Rio,
that was changed to an agreement to pay later,
perhaps because it did away with the unsavory visual of
coaches handing dollar bills over to Olympic officials.
As for who pays up,
it's not the gymnast themselves,
or even necessarily the coaches who are urging for a
review.
Instead, it's the National Federation for that particular team that's
on the hook.
The general idea of this rule is to cut back
on unnecessary challenges,
which can slow down competitions and make the whole fair
look unprofessional.
And if a challenge is successful,
then the team will get its money back.
If it's struck down, however,
that money is kept by the officials where it's donated
to charity.
Surely one of the most eye-catching things about the sports
of gymnastics,
at least after you've witnessed Biles or other top athletes
spinning seemingly effortlessly in the air,
are the outfits for many teams at the Olympics.
The leotards will fall into a standard overall look,
but can then come in a variety of colors and
with embellishments that can glitter and dazzle beneath the bright
lights.
This is beautiful,
yet gymnasts are subject to appearance based rules that go
beyond sparkles.
Some make sense from a practical standpoint,
like USA Gymnastics policy that athletes must have their hair
secured away from the face and can't sport any jewelry
beyond simple stud earrings.
Anything else could reasonably be considered distracting to the athlete
or even potentially dangerous should they fall.
However, appearance regulations go further to the point where some
have alleged that these rules should be more rightfully considered
as puritanical attempts to control women's bodies then attempts to
keep a sport safe. For instance,
in the same USA Gymnastics rulebook,
regulations state that leotards can't reveal hip bones and cannot
be backless,
yet it goes on to state that mesh or flesh
colored fabric and what would otherwise be open leotard sections
is OK.
Other dress code rules for the US women's gymnastics team
include bands on two thin shoulder straps,
tennis shoes, boxers, midriff bearing skirts,
and other penalty carrying clothes that have been deemed inappropriate.
Even a casual overview of Olympic gymnastics will reveal an
obvious rule.
Male gymnasts compete in one particular set of events and
female gymnasts in another.
Currently, men compete in six events and women in four.
To be fair, some events,
such as still rings and pommel horse routines do require
extraordinary upper body strength that's more easily achieved by male
gymnasts.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean that women couldn't compete in
their own events like in many other sports.
In fact, at the 1948 Olympics,
women did compete on rings.
It's unclear what was behind the change between then and
today,
but some speculate that gender norms,
not ability, shape the dramatic differences between men's and women's
gymnastics.
Similarly confusing is the current rule dictating that only women
can compete in rhythmic gymnastics.
Well, at the Olympics anyway.
In other events, men are welcome to perform,
or at least they're trying to make headway.
In Japan, male rhythmic gymnastics events have been popular for
decades and incorporate tumbling movements not unlike those seen in
artistic gymnastics.
And in France, gymnast Peterson Seuss is a devotee of
rhythmic gymnastics who is advocating for men to compete at
the Olympic level and has even brought legal challenges to
that point in his home country.
Currently, however, the rhythmic gymnastics gender divide stands at the
Olympics.
Well, it may not be an official rule of the
Olympics.
Competing at such a high level practically demands that athletes
get serious about gear.
How serious? Let's start with as many fittings as a
pricey wedding dress.
Those leotards are as expensive as some wedding dresses,
too, at least when you add up all the pieces
in a
gymnast's professional wardrobe. Each U.S.
team member gets 12 practice leotards,
which are about 60 to
$200.00 each, and eight competition quality ones,
which typically clock in at 700 to
$1200 each. By the time Olympics level leotards make it
to competition,
they've been designed, tested, redesigned and individually constructed to fit
the unique body type of each athlete.
This laborious process helps them both stay within the rules
of leotard appearances and remain as competitive as possible.
We have grit, we have power,
we have grace. Olympic gymnasts go through about 3 fittings
for a custom leotard,
though some make it through with just two.
What's more, they have to abide both by the rules
of the Olympic Committee,
which dictates that their uniform must display the flag or
name of their country,
but not their individual name and the final fashion say
so of their team coach.