Graduation, lack of opportunity force most gymnasts to quit. A women’s league is out to change that
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Yueke
Tue, Jun 25, 2024
PHOTO: Yueke
Graduation, Lack of Opportunity Force Most Gymnasts to Quit. A Women’s League is Out to Change That
Luisa Blanco knows her gymnastics career has an expiration date.
The funny thing is, the older the recent Alabama graduate gets, the more it seems to keep getting pushed back.
For a long time, the 22-year-old Blanco figured her final season with the Crimson Tide this spring would be it. Then she qualified to compete for Colombia in the Paris Olympics at last year’s Pan Am Games, a dream she had long ago abandoned.
And while Blanco — a Texas native whose family is from Colombia — is focusing her attention on getting prepared for the Games, she is not sure she wants to see this chapter of her life end with the closing ceremony.
“Part of me wants to do gymnastics forever,” Blanco said. “It’s something that is not easy to walk away from.”
She’s hardly alone. Every year dozens of collegiate or elite athletes reach a crossroads where opportunities to continue vanish. They graduate. Or they get hurt. Or burned out. Or some combination of the three.
Starting next year, however, there could be an alternative.
The new league wants to provide women a chance to continue competing until they’re ready to walk away on their terms. Co-founders Aimee Boorman, Maura Fox, and LaPrise Williams believe the spike in popularity of women’s sports in general — from the WNBA to soccer to tennis — and gymnastics in particular in recent years have created a landscape where a professional league will work.
The league plans to host its initial event sometime in 2025 with a roster of post-collegiate, international, and perhaps elite gymnasts who aren’t ready to essentially be forced into retirement by circumstance.
“Female gymnasts are ending their career in college and most of them are at the peak shape in their life,” said Boorman, who helped guide superstar Simone Biles to five Olympic medals and three world all-around championships. “Mentally they’re in the right place. Physically they’re in the right place. Then they have to deal with this sense of loss and this mourning process. We are providing the platform that allows them to continue.”
A ‘Necessity’ for New Opportunities
There was once a belief in the U.S. that female gymnasts needed to be in their teens if they wanted to compete at the highest levels of the sport, a myth Blanco grew up with while training at the Dallas-area gym owned by Valeri Liukin, whose daughter Nastia won the Olympic title at Beijing in 2008 at 18.
“That mentality of your body peaking at 15, 16 years old so that you can get ready and go to the Olympics, that was very much ingrained in me from a very, very young age,” she said.
That’s no longer the case in 2024.
There’s a strong likelihood that the five-woman U.S. Olympic team for Paris will be comprised almost entirely of athletes in their 20s, led by the 27-year-old Biles.
“With the average age of Olympic gymnasts continuing to climb, we are seeing that there is a necessity for an additional environment that supports and celebrates the phenomenal athletes in our sport outside of the traditional arenas of national and college competition,” said Cal women’s co-head coach Liz Crandall-Howell, who along with her husband Justin led the Bears to a program-best NCAA runner-up finish this spring.
The shift is due to several factors, including the easing of NCAA compensation rules that allow elite gymnasts like 2020 Olympic champion Sunisa Lee to compete collegiately while cashing in on their success.
Gymnasts like LSU’s Olivia Dunne have landed high-profile sponsorship deals that have helped raise the profile of the sport to something beyond the every-four-year fascination with the Olympics.
Going Pro in the US
The new league wants to provide an outlet for gymnasts both athletically and financially, believing the league will let the athletes remain in the sport longer, letting them grow their personal brand in the process.
The gymnastics will be a hybrid of sorts. The league will use the 10.0 scoring system — figuring it’s more accessible to casual fans than the more complex international scoring system — and is looking for a middle ground between the NCAA and elite levels.
There will be a slight lean toward artistry over difficulty, though there should still be plenty of opportunities for athletes still looking to push their skills. It just won’t necessarily be required to impress the judges.
“The code (of points) is geared to make sure these women have longevity in the sport,” Boorman said. “We want to see the big exciting gymnastics but we also aren’t going to push skills that have high injury rates that could shorten their careers.”
In a perfect world, Boorman sees a day where the league has a handful of events in the late-spring/early summer, multiple training centers, paid maternity leave, and “everything else a professional athlete should have because it’s a job, not just a hobby.”
That, of course, will take a significant amount of investment and hopefully a broadcast partner for starters. Boorman points to the rising TV ratings and streaming numbers for pretty much anything women’s sports-related at the moment as evidence the market is there.
The meets — in whatever way they reach the audience — won’t look like a typical broadcast.
The league plans to lean into AI and tech to give viewers specific metrics on everything from the speed of a gymnast sprinting down the vault runway to the height they reach during a tumbling pass.
“This event is not going to be a show, it is going to be a competition,” Boorman said. “We really want to honor the athletes and their physical prowess. They are the best in the world at what they do.”
And just as importantly, allow them to stay in something they clearly love. Blanco watched teammates at Alabama graduate and struggle with having gymnastics become something they “did,” not something they “do.” The new league could potentially change that.
“Starting something like this is incredible,” Blanco said. “Because it gives you the opportunity to not leave something unfinished for as long as your body can let you.”
___
This story was updated to delete an image of the wrong gymnast.
___
AP Summer Olympics:
Luisa Blanco knows her gymnastics career has an expiration date.
The funny thing is, the older the recent Alabama graduate gets, the more it seems to keep getting pushed back.
For a long time, the 22-year-old Blanco figured her final season with the Crimson Tide this spring would be it. Then she qualified to compete for Colombia in the Paris Olympics at last year’s Pan Am Games, a dream she had long ago abandoned.
And while Blanco — a Texas native whose family is from Colombia — is focusing her attention on getting prepared for the Games, she is not sure she wants to see this chapter of her life end with the closing ceremony.
“Part of me wants to do gymnastics forever,” Blanco said. “It’s something that is not easy to walk away from.”
She’s hardly alone. Every year dozens of collegiate or elite athletes reach a crossroads where opportunities to continue vanish. They graduate. Or they get hurt. Or burned out. Or some combination of the three.
Starting next year, however, there could be an alternative.
The new league wants to provide women a chance to continue competing until they’re ready to walk away on their terms. Co-founders Aimee Boorman, Maura Fox, and LaPrise Williams believe the spike in popularity of women’s sports in general — from the WNBA to soccer to tennis — and gymnastics in particular in recent years have created a landscape where a professional league will work.
The league plans to host its initial event sometime in 2025 with a roster of post-collegiate, international, and perhaps elite gymnasts who aren’t ready to essentially be forced into retirement by circumstance.
“Female gymnasts are ending their career in college and most of them are at the peak shape in their life,” said Boorman, who helped guide superstar Simone Biles to five Olympic medals and three world all-around championships. “Mentally they’re in the right place. Physically they’re in the right place. Then they have to deal with this sense of loss and this mourning process. We are providing the platform that allows them to continue.”
A ‘Necessity’ for New Opportunities
There was once a belief in the U.S. that female gymnasts needed to be in their teens if they wanted to compete at the highest levels of the sport, a myth Blanco grew up with while training at the Dallas-area gym owned by Valeri Liukin, whose daughter Nastia won the Olympic title at Beijing in 2008 at 18.
“That mentality of your body peaking at 15, 16 years old so that you can get ready and go to the Olympics, that was very much ingrained in me from a very, very young age,” she said.
That’s no longer the case in 2024.
There’s a strong likelihood that the five-woman U.S. Olympic team for Paris will be comprised almost entirely of athletes in their 20s, led by the 27-year-old Biles.
“With the average age of Olympic gymnasts continuing to climb, we are seeing that there is a necessity for an additional environment that supports and celebrates the phenomenal athletes in our sport outside of the traditional arenas of national and college competition,” said Cal women’s co-head coach Liz Crandall-Howell, who along with her husband Justin led the Bears to a program-best NCAA runner-up finish this spring.
The shift is due to several factors, including the easing of NCAA compensation rules that allow elite gymnasts like 2020 Olympic champion Sunisa Lee to compete collegiately while cashing in on their success.
Gymnasts like LSU’s Olivia Dunne have landed high-profile sponsorship deals that have helped raise the profile of the sport to something beyond the every-four-year fascination with the Olympics.
Going Pro in the US
The new league wants to provide an outlet for gymnasts both athletically and financially, believing the league will let the athletes remain in the sport longer, letting them grow their personal brand in the process.
The gymnastics will be a hybrid of sorts. The league will use the 10.0 scoring system — figuring it’s more accessible to casual fans than the more complex international scoring system — and is looking for a middle ground between the NCAA and elite levels.
There will be a slight lean toward artistry over difficulty, though there should still be plenty of opportunities for athletes still looking to push their skills. It just won’t necessarily be required to impress the judges.
“The code (of points) is geared to make sure these women have longevity in the sport,” Boorman said. “We want to see the big exciting gymnastics but we also aren’t going to push skills that have high injury rates that could shorten their careers.”
In a perfect world, Boorman sees a day where the league has a handful of events in the late-spring/early summer, multiple training centers, paid maternity leave, and “everything else a professional athlete should have because it’s a job, not just a hobby.”
That, of course, will take a significant amount of investment and hopefully a broadcast partner for starters. Boorman points to the rising TV ratings and streaming numbers for pretty much anything women’s sports-related at the moment as evidence the market is there.
The meets — in whatever way they reach the audience — won’t look like a typical broadcast.
The league plans to lean into AI and tech to give viewers specific metrics on everything from the speed of a gymnast sprinting down the vault runway to the height they reach during a tumbling pass.
“This event is not going to be a show, it is going to be a competition,” Boorman said. “We really want to honor the athletes and their physical prowess. They are the best in the world at what they do.”
And just as importantly, allow them to stay in something they clearly love. Blanco watched teammates at Alabama graduate and struggle with having gymnastics become something they “did,” not something they “do.” The new league could potentially change that.
“Starting something like this is incredible,” Blanco said. “Because it gives you the opportunity to not leave something unfinished for as long as your body can let you.”
___
This story was updated to delete an image of the wrong gymnast.
___
AP Summer Olympics:
**UK Fans Wonder if Taylor Swift Will Say ‘So Long, London’ After Eras Tour**
LONDON (AP) — Taylor Swift fans are known for dissecting her lyrics for clues about her romantic life and mental state. However, her U.K. fans didn't need to scrutinize her latest album, "The Tortured Poets Department," to sense that Swift might be growing disenchanted with London. The record’s fifth track, titled "So Long, London," seems to hint at a shift in her relationship with the city she once considered a second home.
As Swift brings her Eras Tour to London’s Wembley Stadium, some fans are speculating whether they are witnessing the start of a prolonged farewell. She is set to perform three nights starting Friday and will return for six more nights in August to conclude the tour. London is the only city on the tour where Swift is making two stops, leading some to worry that this might be a swan song, while others believe it signifies a new chapter in her connection with the city. Whether "So Long, London" marks a final goodbye or a new beginning, the Eras Tour is undeniably an emotional milestone.
“Her relationship now kind of assumes London won’t be somewhere she will be. It’s not like there is an American football player living here,” said Maggie Fekete, 22, a Canadian graduate student who found comfort in the London references in Swift’s music when she moved to the city three years ago. “I think there will be a lot less London in her music, which is sad.”
For those not keeping track, Swift has had a series of high-profile romances with British celebrities, starting with Harry Styles in 2012 and ending last year when she began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The speculation around "So Long, London" and its somber companion track, "The Black Dog," stems from her 2023 breakup with English actor Joe Alwyn, with whom she was in a relationship for over six years.
Alwyn is believed to have inspired "London Boy," a track from her 2019 album "Lover." A special-edition "Lover" CD included what appeared to be a January 2017 diary entry where Swift mentioned being “essentially based in London” but trying to stay under the radar. British tabloids later reported that Swift spent much of the COVID-19 pandemic with Alwyn in north London.
In December, The Sun reported that the multiple Grammy-winner had purchased a large property in the area and was renovating it to serve as her European base. However, after the release of "The Tortured Poets Department" last month, a writer for the British edition of ELLE magazine noted that Londoners might now have an opening “for an all-American A-lister who can slot into her place in our collective consciousness.” Naomi May playfully suggested that Zendaya, often seen with her British boyfriend Tom Holland, might be filling that void.
Regardless, London is rolling out the red carpet to ensure Swift and her fans feel appreciated. Guides are offering walking, bus, and taxi tours retracing her steps, including a kebab shop whose owner claims to be providing sandwiches for Swift and her crew. Before the end of August, fans can enjoy Swift-themed brunches, dance parties, and even a ride on the London Eye Ferris wheel accompanied by a string quartet playing her music. Souvenir stalls in Camden Market, a location mentioned in "London Boy," are stocked with Swift-specific caps, T-shirts, bags, and stickers.
“We’re very proud that London is hosting more shows than any other city on Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour, a real testament to her love for London,” said Laura Citron, CEO of tourism agency London & Partners.
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