Good News for US Women's Gymnastics

[Albert Parker]

A few years ago I wrote that I didn't expect to see another US woman win an
Olympic medal in my lifetime. I still don't but, but according to a web
site that I visited recently, it's about 50-50 that I'll be dead by
2024--about 10 years earlier than I had expected. (It's about the time I
thought I might be able to afford to retire.)

Of course, in 1968 I wouldn't have predicted an Olympic medal even in 20
years, and in 1977 I wouldn't have expected that in 20 years rules changes
would put them out of reach of American women gymnasts. So don't count on
anything. Maybe I'll even still be ALIVE in 2024. :-)

[Crapshoot]

Hey Albert, it's me Dirk. I'll make you a bet.....

I'll bet you a cookie, (that was my grandmas favorite wager, a cookie) that
we do see an American female gymnast win an Olympic medal by the end of year
2024. Any medal, G, S, Br. anywhere on earth.

Go here:

http://www.deathclock.com/

punch in the numbers and tell me what year you get.

Dirk

"Albert Parker" <ac...@sprintmail.com> wrote in message
news:EKug9.4017$Le2.3...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...

[Albert Parker]

"Crapshoot" <dirk...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
news:RATg9.22097$U7.10...@twister.socal.rr.com...

> Hey Albert, it's me Dirk. I'll make you a bet.....
>
> I'll bet you a cookie, (that was my grandmas favorite wager, a cookie)
that
> we do see an American female gymnast win an Olympic medal by the end of
year
> 2024. Any medal, G, S, Br. anywhere on earth.
>
> Go here:
>
> http://www.deathclock.com/
>
> punch in the numbers and tell me what year you get.
>

Didn't get a year. It just said that I had 583,824,936 seconds to live--not
very helpful. But it's based only on date of birth and gender. The Web
site I visited asked a bunch of questions about mortality-related
characteristics like how far over the speed limit you drive, what your blood
pressure is, etc., and predicted a "life expectancy" of around 75-76 years
(there was some stuff about cholesterol levels that I don't know, which
makes a little bit of a difference), which means it's 50-50 that I'll die in
2022-23. So you kids have a chance to see a US women's Olympic gymnastics
medal sometime in 2024 or later.

I say OR LATER because I think something has to change in the rules, in the
way US women gymnasts are recruited, or the ways they are recruited and
trained in the big four ABC programs. Junior high and high-school age girls
in the USAG program either just don't HAVE 50 hours a week to train, none of
them are willing to spend that much time training, or none of the US coaches
are willing to coach them for that many hours/week. I think the first
reason is a major limitation, because of compulsory education laws and the
college ambitions of most of the gymnasts. I suppose that if USAG could
contrive to recruit gymnasts from the same sources as male basketball
players, they would have girls who aren't thinking about studying enough to
get the grades they will need to get into college, and would drop out of
school entirely as soon as the law allowed. THEY could train 7 hours a day,
7 days a week. But the basketball players who spend only as much time on
their schoolwork as they need to get the minimum grades necessary to remain
eligible to play HS basketball are, however irrationally from a statistical
point of view, betting on making big bucks in the pros. There's no
gymnastics equivalent, and thus no incentive for a 14-year-old American girl
to blow off her education in favor of gymnastics.

If the Romanians, Russians, Chinese, and Ukrainians were only training 35
hours/week, then other factors would come into play, such as the breadth of
the recruiting and the quality of the coaching. Romania would have a hard
time because of a small talent pool, and Ukraine would have a similar
problem. Given their population, the Chinese should have the largest talent
pool of all and should win all the medals, but I think they just don't have
enough scouts to find their Millers out in the countryside. (Think of how
few Olympic and Worlds medals the US would have won in 1991-96 if Shannon
Miller's father had a been a physics professor at Boise State instead of the
University of Central Oklahoma, and she had become a skier.) But if FIG
passed a rule that gymnasts under 18 could train only 35 hours/week, the big
four would all break it one way or another.

[chiy...@gmail.com]

[chiy...@gmail.com]

[chiy...@gmail.com]

Didn't get a year. It just said that I had 583,824,936 seconds to live--not

[chiy...@gmail.com]

[chiy...@gmail.com]

[chiy...@gmail.com]

pressure is, etc., and predicted a "life expectancy" of around 75-76 years
(there was some stuff about cholesterol levels that I don't know, which
makes a little bit of a difference), which means it's 50-50 that I'll die in

2022-23. So you kids have a ch Olympic