That can’t be true because there used to be really old women out there for those Eastern European countries.
Gymnast Oksana Chusovitina, who has competed in eight Olympics and is the last active athlete to have represented the Soviet Union, failed to qualify for the Paris Games.
www.espn.com
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan --
Record-breaking 48-year-old gymnast Oksana Chusovitina says an injury has ended her attempt to qualify for what would have been her ninth Olympics.
Chusovitina said in a statement on Instagram that she had been injured while practicing her floor exercise ahead of the Asian championships in her home country of Uzbekistan. That was Chusovitina's last opportunity to qualify for the upcoming Paris Olympics.
"I will not be able to take part and I am very upset as I have been preparing for this competition for a long time," Chusovitina said in the statement Thursday. The competition was starting Friday, and Chusovitina said she would be there to support the rest of the Uzbekistan team
Chusovitina's long career is all the more striking in gymnastics, a sport where medalists are often in their teens and elite-level careers rarely last long. She has previously competed alongside gymnasts a third of her age.
Chusovitina won an Olympic gold medal in 1992 with the Unified Team of athletes from post-Soviet nations and a silver in the vault in 2008 representing Germany, where she lived at the time.
She is one of the last remaining active athletes in any sport to have represented the Soviet Union, for which she won world championship gold in 1991 at the age of 16.