Life is Incomprehensible

So, I'm reading this book for a sports journalism class. It's called Little Girls in Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan (published in 1992 then updated again in 2000). It focuses on elite gymnastics (and a bit of elite figure skating) and the hidden struggles the athletes go through such as eating disorders, injuries and delayed menstruation.

Sounds cheery, right? I'm finding it incredibly heartbreaking. I often find myself tearing up while reading some of the pages. The biggest question I have to all of the athletes, coaches and parents is WHY?Why go through with it? I'll never look at gymnastics the same way again. And it's a shame because I really did enjoy being a spectator...(notice I said spectator...I'm having uncomfortable flashbacks to a two piece, tie-dyed uniform I wore in a concert when I was about 6 years old during my brief stint as a gymnast). I don't know about you, but I was absolutely obsessed during the 1996 Olympics when the US women's team won the gold medal. I found myself measuring the width of a balance beam in my bedroom and then trying to do cartwheels and "flips" within the lines...but enough about that. What I vividly remember is the media portraying Bela Karoyli as a caring, jolly saint...NOT so says Joan Ryan.

Here's a quote from Ryan's book from former elite gymnast, Kristie Phillips.

I heard every day I was fat (she was 92 pounds, 15 years old), that I looked like an overstuffed Christmas turkey, that I was big as house, that I was never going to make in life, that I was going to end up looking like my mother- which, if you don't know my mother, she's very large-that by the time I was sixteen I was going to weigh two hundred pounds. Bela was saying all this every day.

Kristie like many elite gymnasts eventually started becoming bulimic to lose weight which in turn weakened her strength and ruined her gymnastics career as well as her self-esteem. She was one of the lucky one's though...she came out alive.

Ryan also mentions Karoyli placing his gymnasts on a crazy diet - something like an apple for breakfast and lunch and a salad for dinner. Trainers, male gymnasts and some parents secretly snuck the girls food at competitions because they were terrified for their health. Karolyi's wife would keep an eye on all their hotel rooms and then go search the trash in the morning to make sure they hadn't been eating.

It's not just Karoyli though (according to Ryan), and that's not where the problems end. Most coaches knowingly have their gymnasts train on broken bones and injuries. Anyone who doesn't "suck it up" is yelled at, humiliated and offered an invitation to leave the gym forever. They're forced to participate in events even if they're weak or having trouble. Julissa Gomez snapped her neck after attempting a complicated vault and eventually slipped into a coma and passed away.

If Ryan's claims are all true, then I again come back to WHY? How can these coaches peacefully sleep at night when they know they are starving someone's body of nutrients, tearing down their self-esteem and causing them to crash and burn both mentally and physically? I just don't understand how anyone can do that to another human being, let alone a child. And if the child can't stand up for themselves, where in the world are these parents?! Most of them get so carried away, they refuse to acknowledge that their daughters have become bulimic, that their spirits have been shattered and they are suffering every day. And when the brave girl finally musters up the courage to tell her parents she wants to quit, many of them respond: "You've gotten this far, you can't quit now." All this for a chance for Olympic glory (which most will never experience). All this for a medal? What good can a medal really do? Let's face it, Wheaties aren't really that good. Medals give bragging rights? Fifteen seconds of fame? Medals help pay the bills for awhile? Is any answer really more important than your child's well-being? Life is incomprehensible sometimes.