@emilybee I was watching Track and Field and trust me there was plenty of hugging there as well. I don’t see a problem with it.
ETA: I hadn’t heard of Laurie Hernandez before this year, either, but I only follow gymnastics around the olympics. Simone Biles I had heard of because of how dominant she’s been.
I just checked the schedule, and last night was the last for the trials. I am usually a sports fan, but I love most Olympic sports. Now we’re going to be stuck with wall-to-wall conventions coverage until the Olympic start. Sigh. Not the kind of sport I like.
One thing that bothered me is how much makeup the women wear while competing. I guess I can see it in gymnastics because it is such a visual sport, but women running track with eyeliner and lipstick just seems wrong to me. I know the winners immediately are shown close up for interviews, but still.
Oh come on - they don’t all go around hugging everyone.
I don’t get all the makeup either. I play tennis (and yes the pros wear make-up) and after a few minutes I’m a sweaty mess. Even wearing moisturizer is bothersome as it gets in my eyes.
I wonder if some of the eyeliners are really tatts.
My daughter swims - no make up required!
We did enjoy watching gymnastics trials. Some of these girls look so young - not just small in stature. Trials for every sport are stressful for the athletes, but gymnastics takes the cake for stress. I can barely watch the balance beam routines, and I’m just a plain old spectator. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the parents.
My D played volleyball. The hugging after every point drove my H crazy. He is a volleyball player and the men don’t hug.
That would drive me crazy, too.
I get high fiving after a great point (we occasionally do that when playing dubs) but even the pros don’t hug except after the match ( and they don’t hug their opponents.)
I saw a match at Wimby during the fortnight and the losing player (an American) went in for a hug ( they usually just shake hands and the Europeans might do double cheek kiss) and the other player had look of complete shock on her face!
Keep in mind these girls in gymnastics are very young and essentially the gym and coaches and teammates are family to them, in some cases more than their real families. I have no issue with the hugging.
My daughter did competitive gymnastics from the time she was 4 years old. What I found totally fascinating was these little girls at the same gym are actually competing against each other, but were a team. I don’t know how that doesn’t become a bit disingenuous to cheer on a teammate that you hope to beat. It’s also a very punitive sport - where in ice skating you get points for certain elements, in gymnastics it’s subtracted from perfect. I waited until d stopped competing to ask her how she felt about the judges sitting practically right in front of her judging her. Especially the beam - these judges are literally at a table just a couple of feet away. She said she never even thought about them, she just focused on her routine. She also never was worried about hitting her head or whatever on it, she just wanted to stick it and not fall off. All beam skills were practiced a million thousand times on the low beam before going up to the big beam.
In track and field they do not hug every competitor after every event or competition. It’s often customary to congratulate the winner with a handshake or sometimes brief hug. Similarly a loser who raced bravely but came up short will sometimes get a consoling hug. But routine general hugs for everybody isn’t done.
Where we sometimes see big hugging is in meets like the Olympic trials where the top three make the Olympic team. These top three often engage in a lot of hugging with each other out of a shared sense tremendous joy plus their new status as Olympic teammates. The hugging really gets going in instances where two or all three of the qualifiers were already teammates - from college or from the same track club or training group.
I think the gymnasts’ hugs look awkward because they seem to turn their faces away probably because of the stage makeup. They don’t look genuine.
One thing I learned when we attended the Olympics in person in Seoul in 1988 is that the high-pitched shrieking you often hear as one of the gymnast girls is getting ready to begin her performance is that those shrieks are coming from her teammates - calling encouragement to her. Each Olympic team shrieks only for its own gymnasts. No shrieking across national boundaries.
@mom60 I’m with your husband. HS volleyball hugging always annoyed me.
Also, did anyone else want to fix Allie’s thong-like leotard? She was very “exposed”!
D2 was a high level gymnast at a young age (elite training; spent time in Texas training with the national coaches, one of which was one of hers, etc.) until a year and a half of continuous bad injuries forced her to retire. There is so much competition among those girls, even the ones who are close friends. They are always pitted against each other whether they are on the same team or not. (That’s why college gymnastics can be refreshing; while there is still competition between individuals, there is generally a lot more focus on the team.) I think these athletes need these hugs; they need to realize through them that they are all human, that they are all going through the same thing, that they aren’t enemies. Also, this is an incredibly tough sport mentally and physically, and every one of them has doubtless been through a lot in their relatively young years to get there. So, for me, seeing hugs, even if they are just forced good sportsmanship hugs, is nice. Plus, gymnastics meets take an incredible amount of focus and energy; it’s easy to see why hugs and cheers (if they happen at all) sometimes seem forced during competitions. Anyway, I love seeing them genuinely cheer each other on, because, until the Olympics and college gym (and even then), competition with each other is incredibly stiff. The genuine cheers and hugs are mostly easy to spot, and they are refreshing. As I said, even if they aren’t so genuine, I think that it’s mostly a positive thing. Like Sunday night, audio picked up a couple different girls asking other gymnasts, “Did you hear me? Did you hear me cheer for you/call your name?”… So good to see/hear, IMO!
Hugs between coaches and gymnasts are also easy for me to understand, too. Many of those coaches are super tough, and, again, the sport is incredibly hard. In my mind, it’s great when the girls can be affirmed in that way. Also, the coaches want to celebrate, too. With stories about inappropriate behavior and the young age of the gymmies, I can understand if people get creeped out by it, though. I’d just stay vigilant if I were a parent.
Myloves, college gymnastics meets are the best! Ladies built like grown women and teammates screaming their heads off for each other. I bet many of them had to skip other groups and teams while growing up …rec soccer, choir, to compete at such a high level.
I am amazed at the level of dedication of these young athletes from an early age. That kind of determination and hard work will make their approach to solving any situation they face in life much easier.
I think it’s easy to forget when watching these athletes, especially the gymnasts, that these are 15, 16, 17 year old girls (at least until you see someone like Ragan Smith). The only people who really understand what it’s like to be in their positions are their teammates. Even most athletes don’t turn into “professionals” until their late teens.
I played volleyball competitively for several years. Maybe I’m just blocking it out but I don’t remember all the hugging. Even high fiving in between serves always kind of bugged me. But I understand why they’d do it in gymnastics. They only really compete in a few events- not dozens or more plays like in volleyball. And even though these are competitors, it also seems like many are genuinely good friends, too. I really don’t know how you couldn’t be after going through the training together like they do.
Oh, man. Just figured out that D2 is going to be home for the month of August. She hates sports… I had plans to just snuggle down on the couch every night after work and overdose on Olympics. Don’t think that is going to happen now… 
I will have to be strategic in selecting a few nights to watch…
I am so excited that my summer job ends before the Olympics begin.
I have some family members that aren’t “sport nuts” but find that the Olympics draws even the non-sports aficionado in.
Maybe I’m just old or maybe sexist or both but I liked the women’s gymnastics back when they were more graceful. I was watching with my daughter and started talking about some of my memories of like Olga Korbut and we Youtubed some of her routines and the grace has just disappeared from the sport. It’s all about having the muscle to do as many flips as possible.
DH doesn’t understand how I can stayed glued to the TV for hours every day, watching the Olympics! Even after 30 years, it surprises and annoys him. I feel like it’s one of my few guilty pleasures, so I will keep doing it!