Just in case you live under a rock or somehow missed the fact that the 2016 Rio Olympics are going on right now, I'll give you to rundown on Women's Gymnastics. The USA's 2016 Olympic Women's Gymnastics team consists of Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian, two of which are returning gymnastics Olympians. Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas were a part of the London 2012 "Fab Five" Olympic team. Aly Raisman tied for a bronze medal in 2012 but lost it due to a tie break rule, yet another ridiculous example of unjustified rulings in the world of Olympic gymnastics. Gabby Douglas won a gold medal in London and was the reining Individual All-Around Olympic Champion up until this past week when Simone Biles took the gold.
In the world of gymnastics, competing in the individual all-around competition in the Olympics is all every gymnast has ever wanted. It's what they've dreamed of their entire lives, it's what they've worked so hard for, and it's the ultimate end goal. It shows that you're among the best in the world and dominate on every apparatus. Having this in mind, one would think that that means the gymnasts with the highest average scores get to compete no matter what country they're from. But that's not how it works at all.
Here's a breakdown of the way gymnastics works in the Olympics and the "Two-Per-Country" Rule: Every country can have a team of up to five athletes to compete in the team final. After the team competition comes the qualifiers for the individual all-around competition. The same athletes from the team competition can compete for the spots in the individual all-around competition, but here comes the catch. Only two gymnasts from each country get to compete, no matter how high their scores are.
In recent years, two of the world's top ranked gymnasts were cheated out of the all-around competition by this rule. 2011 World Champion Jordyn Wieber faced this in the 2012 Olympic games after teammates Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman beat her scores in the all-around qualifier. The same thing happened just this week to Gabby Douglas in Rio. She placed third in the individual all-around competition, which meant she didn't make the cut to compete for another medal. It's mind-blowing that the third best gymnast in world can't compete, but gymnasts from other countries didn't score anywhere near her and frankly can't compete as well as her are allowed to compete. This Two-Per-Country rule has been causing a stir in the world of gymnastics for years now. Needless to say, the International Gymnastics Federation needs to highly reconsider this rule.
