Nah competing on the international Olympics level, in gymnastics, they age out faster than damn near any sport. Simone is the very rare exception.
It's getting easier now because western gymnastics focuses on fitness, endurance, durability and muscles.
In China, they still value the slim/lean ballerina look. Their girls are almost always 16 but look 12. It's good for beam and uneven bars but terrible for vault and floor. You need muscles and power for the vault and floor.
Team USA - its pretty much all grown women except Hezly Rivera. The age, fitness and experience makes them much more reliable in Olympic competition. You look at the Chinese females and when they're "on" they are damn good.....but the minute they hit a rough patch, you can see them struggling mentally because they're young and lack the breadth of experience to fall back on.
Look at the All-Around Final. Suni was the defending Olympic champ with lots of NCAA experience. Simone is Simone. Andrade is mid 20s with Olympic medals of her own. I was watching some of the younger European and Asian gymnasts and you could tell they just weren't there yet.
