Olympics question about age requirements

[Kevlar]

There is a great deal of talk about the ages of the women gymnasts from China. Apparently they must be 16 to compete. Is there a reason for this? Several of the synchronized divers were 15 and there didn't seem to be a problem with them.

K

[sneezles]

Here's an article that may help explain the reasoning

Prepubescent Pixies: Should There Be A Higher Minimum Age For Olympic Gymnasts? (http://www.speakout.com/activism/issue_briefs/1387b-1.html)

[syzygy]

That article was very interesting (thanks, sneezles) and pretty much in line with what the commentators have been discussing this week (interesting that the article was written in 2001!). But the "women" don't have to be 16 to compete -- only must turn 16 during the Olympic year, or so that's what they keep saying. I don't know if the rules are the same for other sports in the Olympics, though. What I've heard discussed was only specifically for the gymnasts, and put that way, too.

[funniegrrl]

The Olympics in general have a minimum age of 13 I believe. But, on top of that, the federation for any given sport can have their own requirements. For example, the minimum for figure skating was 14, and the skating federation raised it to 15 in the late 90s.

[aggie94]

I was wondering about this as well, since it seems that different sports have different age requirements. For example, there's been a lot of discussion about the turning-16-in-the-Olympic-year requirement for gymnastics, but it appears that the minimum age for swimming and diving is 14 (or possibly less), as there was reference to Park (the first South Korean to medal in swimming) being a first-time Olympian in Athens at age 14 and there has been at least one synchro diver that was 14.

I'm curious who sets the age requirements and why some sports have higher requirements than others.

ETA: Oops, I see funniegrrl explained it while I was still typing - thanks!