You don't have to be short to be able to do the stuff gymnasts do. The elite level ones ae usually tiny because they've probably been doing it since childhood and competition level gymnastics will stunt your growth as a lot of the energy and stuff that would normally be used for straight up growing gets diverted into musculoskeletal development instead.
Smallsteps was watching too and was trying to do some spins on the floor in her socks, thinking she did a comparable job
Awww [dies of cuteness overdose]
they would get back up, rechalk their hands and finish their routine.
Firstly, it's not a waste, they got to the freaking Olympics.
And unless you've broken/really hurt something (or your coach screams at you to stop because they can see that the injury you just picked up is worse than your adrenaline thinks it is), always finish.
that's what we always tell our kids and we're like grassroots level
I should have probably got some throwaway logins from bugmenot or somewhere for 9now as they tried to force more signups by hiding put all the gymnastics on that.
I was going to add a reference to basketball - you don't have to be tall... but it sure helps! I remember a story (I think from aus) about gymnastic twins where one quit young enough and grew 6 inches taller than the other.
Have you ever seen someone six foot on the balance beam?
Of course not - a waste for the Olympics :)
They also have a million other competitions throughout the year.
It is the "always finish" thing that I wanted to highlight.
Sounds legit. My daughter reckons the only reason she got taller than me was because of the stupid panpanic otherwise she probably would have stayed shorter. Similarly eldest is going to get surpassed in height by youngest (who quit gymnastics when he was between 8 and 10) probably soon.
Yep, the boys when we used to do switch comp XD None of our girls are that tall.