The OtherArena

[Kronos]

Watching SEC women's gymnastic championships. Amazing just how MUCH better the Olympics-calibre girls are than these college gals.

I shouldn't be shocked, but you do get a sense of what it means to see "elite gymnastics".

[jdw]

Yeah, a lot of sports are like that.

I think it's safe to say that the top college women gymnasts are great athletes. But the "world class" ones usually are younger, and cut out before college. It's a whole 'nother level.

You'd get that with women's tennis as well. I'd be surprised if 10% of the women who have hit the Top 10 over the past decade spent much if any time in college.

John

[Midline Shift]

I played soccer with a girl who was a national tennis champion (doubles, I think) at UNC. She's a good athlete but not close to what I'd imagine a Top 10 player/Grand Slam contender is. Not sure how her tennis skills would compare but I would guess there is probably a similar gap there too.

Not knocking her, I think it's just how ridiculously good the best players are.


Simon

[Kronos]

John, you're right that they were clearly very good at what they did. And I saw some better performers after I made that observation. The commentators were making the point, too, that because it was the SEC championships, the teams tended to "go big". That approach apparently results in more errors and a lower average score than a lot of these teams get during other tourneys throughout the year.

I would guess that gymnastics, tennis (as Midline mentions), and maybe figure skating are the kinds of sports that girls train to do from toddlerhood. The ones that make it to World-Class levels are probably so burned out from training all day every day since birth that they put it aside when and if they go to college. So the ones that are still competing in school are the next levels down. That seems to fit with the few gals I randomly googled last night from the show.

One other observation re gymnastics: The freshman girls tended to have the same body types as the girls we'd see on the Olympics: Slim torso (read: no breasts) and very developed legs/glutes. The juniors and seniors seemed to have more breast development and generally felt chunkier or "thicker" all around. So it may be that in this sport (and in skating), you just can't do as well once you pass a certain age because hormones finally catch up with you.

I watched a news report the other day about Nastia Liukin, who dominated the 2008 Games. She's been basically out of the gymnastics sport as a competitor for over three years, but she recently decided to try for the 2012 team at age 22. She looks different than she did in her prime, too. Part of it is surely that she's not working out so hard. But part of it is that she seems to look more like an adult and not a freakish little girl. (though she never really did look freakish, the way someone like Shawn Johnson does)

Female tennis players, soccer players, runners, and swimmers are not as dependent on a specific body type/shape, and so you see them competing at high levels into their 20s and later (if they stay healthy).