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This sounds like a very interesting book. I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately because I was a little girl gymnast and now I have a little daughter and am trying to bring her into the sport without potentially exposing her to the darker side of it.
As a skinny little 8yr old I was mocked for having "baby fat" by coaches and teammates. My coach would come up with all sorts of punishments if we didn't get something right, things such as hurling us into the foam pit (no, it didn't hurt all that much, but it felt very violent). He would scream at us about how spoiled and worthless we were compared to "the little Russian girls who have to do this to Eat!" Every girl on the team hated every other girl, because while gymnastics is a team sport, the teammates compete against each other for individual placements in competition. Sometimes I gross out friends with horror stories of the giant rips that would develop on my palms when blisters burst, and how I had to just chalk my bloody hands back up and keep working on the bars. Team practice was every day for 4 hours, the last hour was literally hundreds and hundreds of sit-ups, push-ups and pull-ups.
And this is for level 8 - several steps down from olympic training.
I'm deeply grateful to my parents for supporting me in my decision to quit while I still had some childhood left.
On the other hand, gymnastics was a big piece of my life. The feeling of flying through the air, of turning forward momentum into upward motion, of twisting and then landing proudly on my feet was an exhilarating experience. I value the strength, flexibility and confidence in my own physical strength that I gained from gymnastics.
I've met several former girl ballerinas who've had similar experiences, but this is the first time I've come across something about the experience of gymnasts in the 1980's. It was a very awkward time for the sport.
