It was a historic night at the 2022 United States Gymnastics Championships on August 21st. For the first time in history, three black gymnasts have finished on the overall podium at a national competition. Team USA.
Conor McClain, 17 took the top spot On the podium for the senior women’s overall title, she narrowly edged second-place winner Seeleys Jones, who also took silver at the 2021 Winter Cup Overall. Olympic silver medalist Jordan Childs finished the 2022 podium in her third place.
“It’s pretty unbelievable now,” McLain said. Team USA After the competition. “In the last few months alone, my confidence has grown so much…I know I can do the routine and I go into competition knowing I can do it too.”
The composition of the podium follows a trend based on last year’s results. 2021 US Championshipthe three athletes on the podium are all women of color and their gymnastics is amazing Simone Biles 1st, Sunisa Lee, who later that year became the first Asian-American to win an all-around Olympic gold medal, was 2nd, and Chiles was 3rd.
This year’s historic podium has significant implications for the traditionally predominantly white-dominated gymnastics sport as a whole.according to NCAA data, self-identified that in 2021, only 9% of division 1 athletes on women’s college gymnastics teams will be black. And the diversity issue is perhaps even more pronounced on the sport’s biggest arena, where Team USA had no black gymnastics team on the women’s Olympic team until 1992, when Dominic Dawes and Betty Okino joined the roster. No players were allowed to participate. of washington post.
However, some progress has been made in the last decade or so. At the college level, the number of nonwhite athletes has increased from 27% in 2012 to 37% in 2021, according to NCAA data. Still, it’s worth noting that the number of black athletes he has only increased by 2 percentage points since 2012.
At the Olympic level, black gymnasts have earned some of the sport’s highest honours.At the 2012 London Olympics, Gabby Douglas won the overall title, the first black gymnast to do so— a feat that Okino said “changed trajectory forever.” director. Then, at the next Games, Biles began to dominate the Olympic arena, winning the first of seven Olympic medals.
Winning black athletes could also serve as role models for a new generation of black girls, encouraging them to give the sport a try.
“Kids look at us and say, ‘Yeah, if she can do this, maybe we can do this too,’ just like we looked at Simone.” is very cool. of new york times Before the Tokyo Games last summer. “Representation is important.”
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