WANTED - GYMNASTS. Only broken bodies may apply. (Little Girls in Pretty Boxes - Joan Ryan)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Little Girls in Pretty Boxes - Joan Ryan
Date:	01/10/04 (1408 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: compelling, interesting

Disadvantages: biased

Joan Ryan is the Cruella De Vil of gymnastics. She takes the stories of girls’ lives, twists them to her own slant, and then flaunts them in public to line her own pockets. She is to sport what Osama Bin Laden is to world peace.

Or so I thought.

Gymnastics has been part of my life for almost thirty years. I trained, competed, choreographed, coached and have been a fan for decades. All my daughters have done gymnastics; my middle daughter has been training for nine years and is only eleven. I named two of my children after famous gymnasts. Despite my body being too old, fat and unfit to do the sport now, gymnastics remains in my heart and is one of the great loves of my life.

When the book Little Girls In Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan was published in 1995, the gymnastics world was not impressed. The book details tales of abuse in women’s gymnastics and figure skating. Eating disorders, verbally abusive coaches, behind-the-scenes politicking and crippling injuries paint these sports in a less than glittering picture.

I hadn’t really intended to ever buy this book. I ended up doing so, as it was in a job lot of gym books on Ebay and I wanted the others. It arrived and I decided to read it and I have to say I am pleased I did. It was informative, revealing, absorbing and a compelling read.

This is not to say I agreed with much of what Ryan wrote. But if you approach it with a critical eye, I think it is an interesting book. But it needs to be put in some kind of context with a chance to answer her criticisms. This is what I hope to do.

It is hard to know what kind of market Ryan is writing for. It is not suitable for children, as there are several uses of the ‘f’ word. A lot of gym and skating fans would be loathe to buy this, as few would wish to line the pockets of Ms. Ryan by purchasing a book whose front page declares ‘the making and breaking of elite gymnasts and figure skaters’? But how many non-fans would bother either? Still, it seems to have been a successful book, as it has been followed by a TV movie and a whole Oprah show on the issue.

Ryan’s book is very biased though. She focuses on the tragedies of the sport, but fails to recognise those that have succeeded. She interviews gymnasts like Kristie Phillips who never quite fulfilled their potential and ended up bitter. She has few positive things to say. Admittedly some highly successful gymnasts have been interviewed for the book, but reading this, I felt as though Ryan had been very selective about which bits of interviews had been included.

For example, Betty Okino is a gymnast who was graceful, innovative and lovely to watch. She won a bronze medal on beam in the 1991 World Championships and a silver on bars a year later. She competed for the USA in the 1992 Olympics, where they finished third. Hers is a success story.

Yet Ryan presents her as a victim. She writes about her being on a ‘starvation diet’ imposed by her coach, the famous Bela Karolyi. She describes how he called her a ‘pregnant spider’ during training. Okino’s photo in the book is captioned with ‘Betty Okino competed in the 1992 Olympics with stress fractures in her back and elbow and a screw clamping the tendon to her shin.’ Hardly a positive picture.

Okino herself has since responded to her portrayal in this book, writing an article in 2001. She defended her sport, her experience of it and the coaching she received. She believes that Karolyi’s tough coaching weeded out the weaker girls and inspired the best gymnasts to become more confident. This led them to becoming more consistent, so reducing the chance of serious injury.

This certainly makes sense and puts the book in more of a context.

Gymnastics and skating are difficult sports. No one can perform a double loop on the ice or a double back on the floor without years of training. This means several hours a week for many years. Champions are not made overnight.

Ryan emphasises how long these athletes train for and how much stress it puts on a girl’s body. But this is usually what the athlete wants to do. If you have a talent for something or an interest you love, you enjoy it and want to give it your all. Would Ryan be as critical of kids who are on the Playstation for hours every evening? Or those whose parents expect them to do hours of extra studying, to improve their grades at school?

As a former gymnast myself, I put in the hours of training. I would do gym at school in the day, go to gym club in the evenings then come home and practice in the front room. Why? Because I loved it.

I never competed at national level. I competed for my school and my club. I was reserve for the county team. I have one silver medal and a handful of certificates and awards. I didn’t make the Olympics; I never won a gold medal. But I don’t regret a second of those hours I spent, because I was never happier than when I had mastered a new move, choreographed a new floor routine or landed a dismount well.

Ryan seems unable to understand that girls do these sports because they enjoy them. She writes how only six girl gymnasts from the USA make the Olympics every four years. But that isn’t the main reason we do the sport. I would have loved an Olympic medal, it was my dream. But I don’t feel a failure for not getting there, I feel a success for achieving all that I did, however minor.

The author seems to believe success equates to the amount of money earned from the sport. She states that “Mary Lou Retton and Nadia Comaneci are the only gymnasts who have made a substantial living from their sport.” Well, gymnastics has its roots in amateur sport. For most gymnasts, their aim is an Olympic gold medal, not millions of dollars.

It is interesting to note, however, that those ‘only’ successful gymnasts – Mary Lou and Nadia – were both coached by Bela Karolyi. Yes, that rude, abusive coach with barbaric training methods. Hmmm. Interesting.

Mary Lou and Nadia still retain a great friendship with Bela. At the recent Olympics in Athens, Nadia sat with Bela in the stands and they were photographed laughing and smiling. Surely this would not be possible if Karolyi had been as abusive as Ryan believes him to be?

Ryan devotes thousands of words to proving how dangerous gymnastics is. Admittedly the sport carries a high risk of injury, but so do many things. I regularly sprained and twisted my ankles and wrists. I once did a gym display on a broken foot. These days, I have very weak knees and have had a year of physiotherapy on them. But it was all worth it. My only regret is that I can’t do the moves now that I could when I was fifteen.

There are very few real tragedies in gymnastics. Most fans can name them all with little hesitation.

Elena Moukhina (1978 World Champion) broke her neck in 1980, aged twenty and has been paralysed ever since.

An American national team member, Julissa Gomez broke her neck on the vault in 1988 aged 16. She was paralysed and required around-the-clock care. She died of an infection three years later.

Christy Henrich competed for the US in the 1989 World Championships, where a judge told her she was fat. Henrich died of anorexia in 1994 aged 22.

But even more gymnastics names died in tragic ways that were NOT related to the sport –

Hilary Grivich – US team member – died in a car crash in 1997, aged 19.
Alexander Beresch – 2000 European champion – was killed in a car crash in 2003, aged 26.
Oksana Kostina – 1992 World champion in rhythmic gymnastics – died in a car crash in 1993, aged 20.
Sherry Hawco – Canadian team member – died of breast cancer in 1991.

And there are more.

This is not to say that we shouldn’t be aware of the danger of sport. But emphasising those two deaths, one paralysis and a handful of eating disorders is surely not offering a fair picture of the sport, when others die from illness or car crashes and the vast majority live long, healthy lives.

She also criticises the stress sport puts on young, developing girls. She believes it delays menstruation, quoting Kathy Johnson (famous US gymnast of the ‘70s and ‘80s) who got her first period at the age of twenty-five. The fact Ryan mentions this specific case three or four times throughout the book suggests that poor Kathy is the only gymnast she found who started menstruation this late!

Former gymnasts certainly seem to have few fertility problems. If we choose the 1980 USSR Olympic team as an example, Maria Filatova has a daughter, Nelli Kim had a daughter, Elena Davydova has two sons, Stella Zakharova has a son and a daughter, Natalia Shaposhnikova and Elena Naimushina have three children each. Of course, Ryan fails to mention this or any similar example.

Being written in 1995, Joan Ryan’s book is outdated in one aspect too that is significant. She criticises gymnastics for its tiny, young, flat-chested little girls whose careers were over in a couple of years. The sport itself helped to improve the situation by introducing a rule that means the minimum age is now sixteen. Nadia will now always be the youngest Olympic champion at fourteen. These days, she would not be eligible to compete.

The 2004 Athens Olympics had its fair share of elfin gymnasts, but a large number of them were women, not little girls. Many were over five feet tall with hips, boobs and curves. Svetlana Khorkina who finished second overall is 5’ 5” tall, 25 years old and has been at the top of her sport for ten years. The oldest gymnast at Athens was Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina – 29, a mother and a veteran competitor from the 1991 World Championships. Athens was her fourth appearance in the Olympic Games!

If Joan Ryan had wanted to publish a fair assessment of the sports she criticises here in so much detail, maybe she should have interviewed more top stars, those who made it, who won Olympic Gold. Although skating stars like Katarina Witt and Oksana Baiul are mentioned along with gymnasts Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton, their success stories are glossed over. They don’t have the chance to have their say. Why not? I suspect it is because they represent the positive side, the one that Ryan chooses to ignore.

I’ll end with a couple of quotes from two women who – unlike Joan Ryan – DO know what they’re talking about.

Betty Okino –

“How dare anyone call gymnastics "celebrated child abuse." Victims of child abuse aren't given a choice. We as athletes are. We should not blame the USAG, coaches, and the sport of gymnastics for turning out bitter, broken down athletes. Instead we should search for the answers a little closer to home. Those of us who came out of the sport unscarred weren't living our parent's dreams, we were living our own.”

Nadia Comaneci (from her book Letters To A Young Gymnast) –

“I had tough times, but I always fought my way back to the top, and what I came to understand through that process was priceless. Gymnastics is a difficult sport, but life is tougher. What I learned … during my gymnastics career helped me. .. What you learn as a child and a teen and the life skills that come out of difficult situations are vital tools for adulthood. It doesn’t matter whether you win gold medals. What matters is that you strive to be your best and then struggle to be even better.”


Little Girls In Pretty Boxes by Joan Ryan.
UK edition ISBN 0-7043-4488-2
£8.99


Okino article
http://www.sportshollywood.com/gymnastics3.html

Updates on former gymnastics stars
http://www.gymnastica.com/whateverhappenedto/

Yahoogroup for fans of 1970s & 1980s gymnastics
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Gym70s80s/

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