By Steve Sailer
08/24/2008
I don’t see why Americans don’t give the women-only sport of rhythmic gymnastics any respect. It looks like an excellent way to keep your daughter off the pole, a classy way for show-offy pretty girls to dance for the admiration of the crowd.
Wilt Chamberlain suggested a couple of decades ago that rather than try to match men in men’s sports, women would be better served by inventing their own sports that highlight their physical advantages, such as flexibility.
By the way, returning to the topic of the unimaginative obsession with gender equality in the Olympics — Men do the triple jump? Well, then women must hop, skip, and jump, too! — one reason that women’s (girls') gymnastics is so hugely popular at each Olympics is that the feminine events are adapted to feminine strengths. The men do six apparatuses, the girls four. The girls don’t do the upper body strength events, the rings, the pommel horse, and the parallel bars, and they do two events men don’t do (the balance beam and the uneven bars). Even the two similar events are adapted — the horse was turned 90 degrees for girls in the vault, and they use music in the floor exercise.
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