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[Jan 14] Girls
overweight problem, Belu's comments and fans reaction
Here are some of the (most interesting) Romanian gymnastics
fans comments which we have found over the Internet.We have
had recently a very useful discussion with Mr. Belu regarding
the freedom of speech (which, he said to us, he respect and
use it himself, like in the Stars gift case, when he made
himself some "free" comments). Well, we do respect
(not less) the freedom of speech ourselves, and we think is
important that even Mr.Belu have to know what the fans of
Romanians gymnastics think about his recent opinions regarding
girls gaining overweight. It may help, we hope.
Here are some of them, random selected:
"Of course a coach can't threat, abuse, humiliate an
athlete to make her lose weight, as happened in the romanian
team since 1975 . What bothers me is the way Belu expresses
himself in the matter. The way he talks about his gymnasts
shows his lack of respect for them. Accusing them of secretely
stuffing themselves and the total focus on the "kilogram problem"
is really disturbing. The girls will probably lose most of
their extra kilos just by starting to train fully again. Also,
some of the gaining is probably growth related. They're not
twelve anymore!"
This sounds very similar to 01-02. I bet most of these girls
will retire, get injured, or get kicked out of Deva by the
middle of next year. All of them have lots of money now, so
there's no reason for them to take Belu's crap if they
don't want to.
The reason they are 'running to fat' is because they have
probably never had access to proper, healthy nutrition in
the first place. They don't know what normal is, so no wonder
they can't stick to it.
Is it wrong of me to find this almost amusing? Like, he's
basically telling the press that he's going to start starving
them again - can you IMAGINE any of the coaches in America
admitting to anything like this, even though they've basically
done, um, the same thing to their own gymnasts?
Perhaps it's a cultural thing, or something with the translation...
but why is he even airing this out in public?
He got his point across, but it probably didn't work like
he wanted it to. I'd be relieved when I stepped on the scale
to find out he was off by 12 lbs. It's absurd that he thinks
they did it to disrespect them. I mean does he know how hard
it is to have everybody control your every move and morsel
and then to be suddenly dumped into the "real world." It's
not an easy transition. If that is how he treats his athlete's,
than that is rediculous.
It doesn't make any sense for Belu to keep them out
of the gym if they're overweight - how are they going to lose
the weight? It seems like these girls clearly don't have enough
in their lives to keep them occupied with some desire other
than food.
Yes, it would be better to do more aerobic work and lose some
of the excess fat before they started the more pounding skills
on the apparatus.
Sure it isn't good for a gymnast to train/ compete over their
ideal weight - but you have to take into account that these
are teenagers and STILL GROWING. There are dozens of medical
articles that show that high level athletes have growth spurts
during off-season or any break from high-intensity training.
Maybe the added chocolate didn't help - but you have to think
that the little Rom... were also dealing with the inevitable
puberty monster after the Olympics/ World Cup season was over.
The KONSPIRACY theorist in me thinks that Belu's rantings
are more about wanting to get rid of a few unnamed gymnasts
he dislikes in order to bring up some promising juniors.
Eating in secret is sad, but I've no doubt that the Roms have
to do that just to get an adequate diet. Coaches are too often
paranoid about weight gain.
I agree that constantly training and competing
underweight will lead to injuries, but you can't say that
doing the same overweight doesn't. It IS dangerous to practice
the skills they do when 10 pounds or more overweight. It will
burn out their bodies more quickly. Just try doing some jumps
and roundoffs with a 10-lb weight belt on - it's a lot more
pounding on and requires a lot more effort from the body.
This is not to say that Belu is not a total jackass for
discussing this subject, esp in this way, with the media (again).
What a jerk.
Romanian Gymnastics News Archive.
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