Everybody’s heard the stereotypes about gymnasts and their height: “Gymnasts are always short,” “Tall girls can’t do gymnastics,” and “You need to be tiny to do gymnastics.” These are just a handful of the harmful words that gymnasts are used to hearing. But these stereotypes just aren’t true. Emma White is a six-foot sophomore on the University of Illinois gymnastics team, and she’s proving both the stereotypes and the haters wrong every day.
White wasn’t always taller than her peers in the gym. She didn’t notice a difference in height between herself and her teammates early on because she was the youngest in her group and had a little less growing time behind her. Since she was ahead of the typical level progression, she made the decision to switch gyms and pursue elite gymnastics. “I was training 30 hours a week, twice a day,” said White. “And then when I turned 13, I grew six inches in six months.”
That growth spurt put White at 5 feet, nine inches tall at 13 years old. For someone who was training elite gymnastics, that proved to be a problem. FIG allows elite gymnasts to compete under one bar setting, and if that doesn’t work for you, that’s too bad. For a taller gymnast like White, it just didn’t work. “I was legitimately…
