It’s Olympics time again! As usual, I’m taking a fairly casual interest (apart from football and tennis, I tend not to watch all that much sport on TV) just browsing the BBC’s excellent multi-channel online/tv output and watching a little bit of everything.
And as usual, I’m struck by the totally freakish bizarreness of female gymnastics.
In terms of physical and sporting endeavour, what these young girls do is spectacular. I really admire their skill and dedication as they hurl themselves over bars, onto ramps and across the floor. But just look at them! It’s like the twisted retro dream of an Eastern Bloc paedophile… tiny girls, their underfed, rigorously trained bodies apparently barely touched by puberty, dressed in tight lycra leotards and with a quantity of make-up you’d expect to see on a dockside harlot.
Fifteen years ago this didn’t seem so strange… gymnastics was still dominated by communist Eastern Europe, where “fashion” seemed to constitute a loosely caricatured approximation of how Western youth dressed in 1981 and where young girls suffered physical and psychological damage from punishing training regimes. Now, though, accessible global communications are removing the barriers of cross-cultural knowledge and a larger range of countries are competing at the top level. So why do most of the competitors still look like extras from a Human League video? Brazilian Daiane dos Santos is refreshing to watch, both for her obvious enthusiasm and the fact she doesn’t look malnourished, but she’s an exception. Every other competitor reminded me of a cross between a Barbie doll and a Midwich Cuckoo… deathly pale, hollow-cheeked and clumsily daubed with eyeliner, blusher and glitter. Is there a whole fashion sub-culture peculiar to international gymnastics? Or a network of lecherous old male coaches with dim memories of what was trendy last time they set foot in a discotheque?