Gymnastics as a sport is often pursued at a very young age by girls and boys, who make it big on the international stage. Therefore, it is extremely important to create a safe and sound space for kids from a very young age at the gymnasium, and other sporting arenas. Retired gymnastics great and three-time Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman is dedicated to bringing this effort to fruition. Her experiences with abuse from her team manager and other unrelated pressures especially awakened her to this cause.

Aly Raisman has always made a concerted effort toward making sports and sporting arenas, especially gymnastics, a worry-less place for kids of any age. She has recently spoken to The Messenger about its relevance still, and the need to continue it.

The need to create a better environment from an early age

Aly Raisman told The Messenger, “I think there’s so much pressure on kids right now”, referring to the multitude of gazes on them, constantly judging every move they make and ready to criticize them online if they fail. The expectations are very high.

She continued, “I think that the more that we can just talk about that pressure and the more that kids feel that they have a safe outlet to go to, whether it’s a parent, whether it’s a family friend, whether it’s a coach or someone in school, just somebody that they can go to that they feel safe to talk to, I think is really important”. Raisman was worried more about understanding kids and their specific needs mentally.

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It would be a process-oriented job to coach kids from a young age en masse for any sport, let alone gymnastics. However, in order for each of them to thrive and be better at what they do while also feeling mentally healthy, each kid needs to be tended to both physically and mentally. Raisman is, therefore, fully in support of kids openly talking about their feelings with someone.

US Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman speaks from her own experiences

Raisman believes, “We all know what it feels like to go through something”. She herself battled against the pressures of trying to be thin as a gymnast, in an extremely competitive sporting world. As an adult, Raisman and many members of the US gymnastics team at the Rio Olympics 2016, experienced traumatic abuse at the hands of their team physician Larry Nassar. She was in her early 20s, at the peak of her career, when she suffered the same and it completely wrecked her.

She believes, if at that age, it can be horrific, kids at a younger age will find such incidents permanently scarring them. Raisman finally said, “I think that creating those safe places for people is very important”. Therefore, the importance to make it safe for them increases manifolds.

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