Degrees of Difficulty

Degrees of Difficulty is a really interesting look at women’s artistic gymnastics and how the sport has changed over the years. Georgia Cervin details how women’s gymnastics played into the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. She writes about a multitude of factors that ended up transforming the sport from mostly being a women’s sport to a young girl’s sport starting in the 70s. Athletes having to be amateurs, not be seen as too “masculine,” and increased acrobatic skills that were believed to be easier for smaller bodies all played a part in this shift.

The imbalance of power between mostly adult male coaches and mostly young girls as the athletes has led to instances of abuse over many years and in many different countries. While Cervin does spend a good amount of time discussing the Karolyi ranch and all the problems with the US system, she makes it clear that this wasn’t just an issue with one set of coaches, it’s systemic in so many different programs and federations.

The book covers so many different interesting topics. Race, the role of femininity in gymnastics, scoring scandals, unfair practices in penalizing countries for age falsifications, and so much more. I’m not sure how accessible this book will be to readers who don’t already have a pretty good knowledge of the sport. But reading this as a fan was super rewarding & fascinating. I do think that the book starts off a little bit slow. I personally didn’t find the information about the very beginning of gymnastics to be quite as compelling as the information that’s about the sport from the 1950s onward. But overall this was a great read.

Read if you: Are fascinated by women's gymnastics and want an in-depth look at the history, legacy, and current issues surrounding the sport.

This is from an academic publisher, so expect it to be somewhat technical and quite detailed at times. However, diehard gymnastics fans and those interested in sports history will definitely benefit.

Not only is the author a historian, but she also competed on the international level, so she brings an inside perspective to the sport and its history/current issues.

Librarians/booksellers: With the Summer Olympics quickly approaching, interest in Olympic gymnasts will be quite high. There's a definite lack of gymnastics books for adults (save for recent books written about the sexual abuse crisis), so this is an excellent addition to your sports books collection.

Many thanks to University of Illinois Press (now, please do a figure skating book like this!) and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

When you think of gymnastics, you may think of girls in sparkly leotards at the Olympic every four years. Maybe you remember seeing performances by the Magnificent Seven, the Fierce Five, or the Final Five. Your view of the sport might be a negative one due to the Larry Nassar scandal and other stories of abuse in gymnastics. If you're a casual Olympics viewer looking to learn more about the sport, or a devoted fan interested in more historical context, Degrees of Difficulty is a great book to pick up!

Georgia Cervin represented New Zealand internationally as an elite gymnast, so she brings a wealth of personal experience to this book. She takes the reader on a journey through gymnastics from its very beginnings, before it was an Olympic sport, to the balletic era of Larisa Latynina, to the acrobaticization of the sport by gymnasts like Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci, to the end of the perfect 10 and the dominance of American gymnasts like Simone Biles. Along the way, Cervin explains how gymnastics was shaped by and helped shape geopolitics, particularly the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union.

Cervin explores how the ideal gymnast morphed from a feminine woman to an athletic pixie, noting the wide ranging consequences of this transition. Cervin also gives the reader a look into the harmful powerful structures in gymnastics that enabled abusers like Don Peters and Larry Nassar - abuse in gymnastics is not the case of one bad apple, but a rotten tree that allows coaches to manipulate and abuse their athletes. But the story is not without a glimmer of hope - stories of gymnasts like Simone Biles asserting their strength and examples of healthy coaching by Liang Chow and others show us that gymnastics can be a worthwhile, rewarding pursuit. While the beginning of the book is a little dry, the political, cultural, and feminist discussions in later chapters really shine.

Thank you to the University of Illinois Press for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A super interesting and thoroughly informative academic look at the history of women’s artistic gymnastics written by former elite New Zealand gymnast, Georgia Cervin. Despite this there are no personal insights, as I was expecting, nonetheless, it’s clear the writer’s experience within the sport has helped her research. For this reason, I think this book requires readers to have a broad knowledge of gymnastics already.

Nothing is off limits; from a look at how hairstyles and outfits worn by the gymnasts have changed over the years, how external politics have influenced the sport as well as the politics within the IOC and FIG, and the corruption and abuse from coaches and officials (the cases of former gymnasts Elena Mukhina and Julissa Gomez are referenced here).

There is a problematic term used within the book - I have a problem with using the term ‘racialised gymnasts’ to mean ‘black/Asian/Latina gymnasts’ - it’s not once or twice either, it’s an entire chapter. Certain gymnasts are and have been racialised - (Gabby Douglas’ attitude is used as an example within the chapter mentioned) but the term isn’t interchangeable with ‘black’.

Overall however this is a well researched book and certainly proves how Larisa Latynina, Nelly Kim, Olga Korbut, Betty Okino, Dominique Dawes, et al paved the way for Simone Biles to become the greatest gymnast of all time.
As someone who has read all available non fiction gymnastics books, I’d rank this one amongst the best.

As a long-time fan of women's gymnastics, I thoroughly enjoyed this academic look at the sport. The author is both an historian and former gymnast so she brings a unique and well-informed perspective to the subject. While it's been difficult the past few years to reconcile my love of the sport with the inherent problems of abuse and racism embedded in the organization, a comprehensive history and well-presented detailing of the gymnastics world helps to put those feelings into an intellectual perspective.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

To commemorate the Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 (ish) Olympics tomorrow, let’s look at the recently released book about international women’s gymnastics by sports scholar and former gymnast Georgia Cervin: Degrees of Difficulty: How Women’s Gymnastics Rose to Prominence and Fell from Grace. This book introduces the origins of gymnastics as “moral” pursuit in the late eighteenth century, chronicles its inclusion in the Olympics in the 1950s, and explores how the Cold War shaped the women’s gymnastics we know today.

Any history of women’s sports would be incomplete without an examination of sexism. Unsurprisingly, sexism has shaped women’s gymnastics since before it even existed as a sport. From the very beginning, men policed and controlled the shape of women’s gymnastics. Women were seen as naturally weaker, discouraged from doing anything to become unattractive to men, gain muscle, or threaten their role as childbearers. Women’s gymnastics has always struggled to find a balance between femininity and feminism. Dr Cervin explores why this is and how we experience that today.

However, the main focus of the book is gymnastics during the Cold War. Cold War politics between the USA and the USSR influenced the sport of gymnastics. Soviet and Romanian gymnasts like Nadia Comaneci, Olga Korbut, and Larisa Latynina were used as political pawns by both sides. But the influence went the other way as well. The USSR approached the (racist, sexist) IOC amateurism policy in such a way that the US responded to that approach rather than to the policy itself. This “golden era” of gymnastics included a dark side where politics and medals were prioritized over the athletes themselves. We still feel the repercussions of these politics in the sport today.

Reaction
Released in June 2021, just in time for the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 games, Degrees of Difficulty kickstarted my excitement for two weeks of fun, stress, and athleticism. Unlike (I assume) most people, I have read multiple histories of the Olympics and Olympic athletes. I’d formed strong opinions about Avery Brundage and the IOC, but Dr Cervin’s focus on gymnastics was new to me. The moment I saw that the book was available, I requested it. And I was not disappointed – I LOVED this book. I took notes and highlights on almost every page since I didn’t want to miss anything.

As a quadrennial spectator of women’s gymnastics, I mostly know what NBC tells me and events that hit national headlines. Degrees of Difficulty filled the gaps for me. I hadn’t realized the importance of the Olympic Games in the development of the sport and in international competition. As someone who studied the Soviet Union across two degrees, I loved this melding of two of my interests. I didn’t struggle with the academic style or structure of the writing, but I can see how others might.

Since Dr Cervin is from New Zealand, I expected a more impartial approach to US policies and politics impacting gymnastics. Although she openly acknowledged that both the US and the USSR used sports as political pawns, some events passed unchecked. For example: Dr Cervin noted that the US sent professional basketballers on a tour of Africa to counter Soviet propaganda about racial inequality in the United States. Then that was it. I don’t see how you can call one propaganda and not the other – ESPECIALLY in the 60s. However, this did not lessen my overall enjoyment of this book.

(Note to my fellow American readers: Dr Cervin uses “racialized people” rather than Black/BIPOC which seems to be a more common term in Canada / Commonwealth countries.)

Who should read this book
If you like the Olympics, gymnastics, or sports politics, I imagine you would like Degrees of Difficulty by Georgia Cervin. Former gymnasts at any level would likely appreciate and relate to the critical look at the sport by a fellow former gymnast. As long as you are prepared for the academic style, I encourage you to pick up a copy or ask your local library to order one.

The Tokyo 2020 games and COVID brought criticism of the Olympics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) even more mainstream. The recent protests by the Japanese people are nothing new, even if COVID brings a new flavor to them. On top of that, the five years since Rio 2016 revealed the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal. Degrees of Difficulty looks at the history of questionable decisions and policies of both the IOC and USA Gymnastics as well as the relationship between the two organizations. If you dislike the Olympics for one (or more!) of the modern (valid!) reasons, I encourage you to read this to add the historical perspective.

Unless one is a student of the history of the sport of gymnastics, there is probably little chance that person has watched the sport outside of the Olympics. That would be a shame for the sport has quite an interesting history and touches many of the social issue challenges that are being addressed today. This book by Georgia Cervin covers many of these topics as well as some political history as well.

From the Cold War in the 1970s up to the sexual assault cases of Larry Nassar and others, Cervin doesn’t leave any issue relevant to gymnastics untouched. She does a good job of tying in the sport’s issues to the larger picture of the day. This is the case whether it was gymnastics being used as a means of diplomacy during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union or whether attempts at making the sport more diverse are successful. On the latter, Cervin highlights the accomplishments of gymnasts of color such as Dominique Dawes and Simone Biles.

This is a scholarly work and reads as such, with each chapter organized by an introduction, body and conclusion. There are not a lot of personal biographies, but in addition to the aforementioned athletes, Cervin portrays other well known gymnasts such as Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci. The latter two are especially prominent in Cervin’s discussion about how the sport changed in its scope from artistic ability and the femininity of the gymnasts. This parallels the expanding role women were playing in all areas of society.

There are also chapters that are strictly about the sport and not with any comparison to social or political issues. The scandals involving scoring and the “disappearance” of the perfect score of 10 are topics in which Cervin discusses with just as much knowledge and depth as she does the social and political topics.

This book is well worth the time and effort to read. If one is not well versed in gymnastics, it might take a little more time for the reader to fully understand the topics, but that reader will learn a lot about the interesting history of this sport.

I wish to thank University of Illinois for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.