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Thursday, July 25, 1996 Page:
A pang of guilt behind cheers for gymnasts’ gold
There she was: A young girl — America’s sweetheart — staring intently at
the challenge ahead, determined to soar skyward and fulfill her dreams and
those of her countrymenThe eyes of the nation were upon her.
Then she crashed in flames and died.
If this doesn’t sound like Olympic gymnast Kerri Strug to you, that’s
because it’s not. It’s Jessica Dubrof. Remember Jessica Dubrof?
Then you also remember the outpouring of rage after 9-year-old Jessica’s
aircraft went down in a Rocky Mountain rainstorm. Who let this happen? the
public roared. The very idea: a girl piloting a plane! Taking such a risk, all
for glory’s sake! Well, never again!
Well, sorry, folks. But “never again” just happened again. This time,
though, it happened in a more sobering way, one that confronts each and every
one of us with the dark side of our all-too-human natures.
Because this time, “Jessica” didn’t crash. She flew.
Kerri Strug nailed her vault despite two torn ligaments in her left leg.
And the U.S. women’s team won a gold medal.
The heart-stopping drama of Strug’s historic leap owes its intensity to one
word: Risk. What if she fails? viewers thought, holding their breath. What if
she taxes her body past the breaking point? What if she lands and collapses in
agony, taking down with her the team’s hopes for the gold?
Well, what if she had done just that?
Because she could have, you know. She could have collapsed her weakened leg
right into a grotesque fracture. There could have been blood on the mat and
screams echoing to the rafters.
The risk of that catastrophe was exactly what made the event such riveting
television.
If the worst had happened, would America be in such a festive mood today?
Of course not. At the least, a shocked and horrified nation might be paying
more attention to a medical report issued Thursday in the prestigious New
England Journal of Medicine. In it a team of doctors warn that “turning
adolescent girls into Olympic gymnasts involves so much nonstop training, so
many injuries and such intense social isolation that it can amount to child
abuse,” the Associated Press summarized.
Make no mistake: We don’t fault Kerri Strug for her exceedingly brave
decision to vault. For one thing, she’s 18, not 9 as was Jessica Dubrof. For
another, any reasonable grownup might have decided the same way, given an
arena in which the pressures and stakes were so high.
We don’t fault Kerri’s parents or her coach Bela Karolyi, either. They’re
all behaving in a way our country has come to expect.
But we can’t help mourning a culture that pushes its people into such
contusions, contortions, and decisions. That sense is the root of the guilt we
feel. Maybe you feel it, too: When you see the girl gymnasts on the medal
platform, and thrill to their winning won the gold for the U.S. of A. — do
you then note their Twiggy-like scrawniness and unnaturally childlike bodies,
and find yourself murmuring, “That’s not right”?
Choir lovers of old used to castrate young boys to preserve the tone and
glory of the boys’ voices. By training girl gymnasts to such extremes that
their very menstruation is delayed, are we grotesquely extending their
childhoods, too?
“I can’t feel my leg!” Kerri Strug screamed upon landing after her first
vault. “Shake it off, shake it off,” responded Coach Bela Karolyi …
“Never again,” the nation cried, after Jessica made a senseless and fatal
decision. Never again will we allow such pressure to be placed on someone so
young.
But that was the easy call. The tougher one faces us today, in the wake of
a risk successfully taken, of glory successfully won.
Today we must consider saying “Never again” in the wake of victory rather
than defeat. Because on Tuesday night when young Kerri nailed her vault, young
Jessica in a sense safely landed her plane.