What was your life like at 13?
At that age, Brazilian Rayssa Leal and British Sky Brown became the youngest Olympic medalists in the history of their countries.
It was skateboarding’s debut on the Olympic program in Tokyo last year, considered a success. A 12-year-old home athlete won a silver.
There is no minimum age to compete in the Olympics. The decision rests with each international federation. That’s why there was a 66-year-old Australian in equestrianism and a 12-year-old Syrian in table tennis. In women’s artistic gymnastics, for example, it is necessary to be 16 by the end of the year in which the competition is held. Skateboarding is one of the modalities that have no restrictions.
This month, the International Olympic Committee recommended that federations look into this issue and make adjustments if necessary.
World Skate, which governs the sport, will not implement a minimum age in the classification criteria for the Paris Games in 2024, which it will release by the end of the month, a spokesperson for the entity confirmed to me. The Brazilian Skate Confederation said it was not aware of any rule change.
In the next Olympic edition, Rayssa will be 16 years old and, if she qualifies, she will be able to compete.
As with her in Brazil, Brown has become a star here in Britain.
The British woman was already a professional at 10, was a world medalist at 11 and an Olympic medalist at 13, published a book and has millions of followers on social media.
Is competing in the Olympics so soon a chance for prodigies to showcase their talent at the world’s biggest sporting event, or an unnecessary early maturing?
The debate is not recent and ends up gaining more importance in modalities such as gymnastics, figure skating and extreme sports, in which the peak of the career can be in late childhood or adolescence. The case of former US national team doctor Larry Nassar, sentenced to more than 300 years in prison for abusing gymnasts, sounded a wake-up call: is sport protecting its athletes?
The episode with 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva was a stain on this year’s Beijing Winter Games. The Russian won team gold, but did not make it to the podium – neither she nor the other medalists of the race – because she tested positive in a drug test carried out in December. Under immense pressure, she was able to compete in the individual, fell down and left in tears, alone.
At Pyeongchang-2018, at the age of 17, American Chloe Kim became the youngest athlete to win gold in the snowboard halfpipe. She qualified for Sochi 2014 but didn’t have the minimum age requirement of 15. When she won the medal, she said it was a relief not to have competed sooner because she didn’t know if “13-year-old Chloe” could handle it all. In Beijing, she was a two-time Olympic champion at 21.
High-performance sport is full of individualities, and it is natural that this discussion generates others. Some cope well with pressure and become physically and mentally healthy adults. Others become victims of an early career. There are those who argue that creating a minimum age does not end the problems and that it is necessary to focus on what is around them – the behavior of parents, technicians, since sometimes the child or adolescent is too young to question authority, the supplements they ingest or the way you train.
The well-being of athletes must be at the center of the debate. After all, it is for them and for them that the Olympic Games exist.
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