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TM's Olympic Rant - Part Two
Quote:
Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Women's gymnastics is an enterprise of especially dubious morality because, like ballet, it involves making decisions about the best years of a young person's life when they are not mature enough to understand the repercussions. I'm not sure why boys are encouraged to diversify their sports activities until competitive high school coaches require them to specialize, but prepubescent girls are expected to work out for four hours a day, delaying growth and onset of menstruation. WTF? You're expected to sacrifice your body for ten years for the glory of the motherland.
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FWIW, one of my sisters was an avid gymast from around four or five years old until maybe 12 or 13. She quit right at the point where she had to make a decision about whether or not to go hardcore. I think knew that her life was going to be more pain than glory. She could impress the hell out of all of her friends with all the tumbling, and that was good enough for her. My parents never put pressure on her to keep on going, and I'm sure they would have had a lot of doubts about it had she decided that she wanted to go on. Health wise, she sported a six pack for about four or five years afterwards without having to do a thing. For a few years, we thought that her gymnastics career may have had an impact on how her scoliosis developed (in her lower back, near her hips), but since my non-gymnast brother was recently diagnosed with scoliosis in the same place, that theory has been put into question.
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"In the olden days before the internet, you'd take this sort of person for a ride out into the woods and shoot them, as Darwin intended, before he could spawn."--Will the Vampire People Leave the Lobby? pg 79
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