A lot of people consider gymnastics to be one of the most visually appealing sports, and for good reason.

These athletes perform mesmerizing routines most of us couldn’t even think of with great ease.

But what’s really behind all those flashy flips and pretty dives is gymnastics just as scandalous as the rest of the sporting world?

Join us as we look at some of the biggest controversies to ever transpire in the world of gymnastics and how they change the sport forever.

First we have the whole Larry Nassar controversy.

The biggest controversy to ever happen in gymnastics was when former gymnast Rachel Den Hollander came forward to expose coach Larry Nassar for sexual assault in 2016..

Nassar was an osteopathic physician for 18 years and had already had a long career.

At the time he was a professor of sports related injuries at Michigan State University.

He also served as the artistic gymnast teams team physician, helping gymnasts from domestic training to major international contests like the 2015 summer olympics.

The Usag cut ties with him and stated that it was due to athlete concerns, which was quite vague given the gravity of the matter and did not satisfy many people.

The outrage only grew as more and more information about Nassar came to light.

The interview with Rachel snowballed into an avalanche, and not too long after, Nasser was relieved of his clinical and teaching duties by Michigan State University.

But the fire had only started.

In 2017, three former gymnasts came out with how they had been treated badly by Larry Nasser.

They also discussed how the training camp was a toxic environment and how they had been emotionally abused to the point where they were unable to speak out about what had happened.

These new accusations only grew the outrage stronger.

The final nail in the coffin came when Olympian Michaela Moroney disclosed that she reported Nassar’s abuse to Usa gymnastics when she was 13 years old, but was pressured into signing a non-disclosure agreement as a part of a 1.25 million settlement.

By the end, more than 250 teen girls and women had come forward to report.

Larry Nassar abused them and in December of 2017 the monster was finally put behind bars after being acquitted by multiple state courts for sexual assault.

And then five centimeters robs olympian a medal.

At the 2000 olympics in Sydney, Australia, Gymnast Alana Slater noticed a huge issue with the vault height.

She alerted her coaches and the tournament officials.

You see, the vaulting course was five centimeters too low.

Per olympic rules, it should have been set at a height of 125 centimeters, but somehow it was set at only 120 centimeters above the ground.

This threw a lot of vaulters off their game.

Many claimed that olympic favorite Lana Corkina was robbed because of this error.

She was permitted to redo her vaults when the height issue was resolved, but because of Corkina’s poor score on the bars, her prospects for an all-around win had already been shattered.

To this day, many people think that Corkina might have won if she had been treated fairly up.

Next, Vera Kasilovska’s protest against the soviets.

Vera Kaslovska, a gymnast from the Czechoslovak Republic, was an incredibly dominant gymnast during her time.

A recipient of 11 olympic medals in all and seven olympic gold medals, she was the favorite going into the 1968 olympics.

Kasilovska was one of the thousands of czechoslovakians that were protesting against the soviet takeover of their country.

This put a huge target on her back and Koslovska had to flee over fears of imprisonment.

She was approved to compete in Mexico city from her country.

Just days before the Olympics officially began, Koslovska ran through her competition in Mexico City.

She won in the four individual gymnastics events and won the overall women’s gymnastics title for the second time in a row.

After two controversial rulings by the judges, she was only able to secure the silver medal and the balancing beam and the joint gold medal with the soviet gymnast in the floor exercise.

She made a subtle anti-soviet protest on the podium.

At the medal ceremony, she lowered her head and turned her back from the soviet flag when it was raised.

She became the second most popular woman in the world at the time due to her brave stand against an authoritative regime.

The soviet government investigated her for having an unhealthy influence.

When she refused to take back her protests, she was banned from competing and refused coaching positions.

But that wasn’t the end for this amazing woman.

The Ioc awarded her the olympic order in the 1980s for her work in the olympic movement, which she held until her death in 2016..

Next on the list is when Andrea Ratacan gets stripped of gold medal.

Andrea Radican was a romanian gymnast that was disqualified from the women’s all-around competition after testing positive for an illegal substance in her system.

The athlete tested positive for pseudofindren, which was a drug listed under the prohibited section by the international Olympic committee.

Later it was discovered that she had been given drugs by the romanian team doctor in the form of cold medicine pills.

The doctor was later barred from the olympic games.

It is thought that Radican only tested positive because of her relatively small size.

Members of the panel reviewing her case admitted that the medication had no impact on her performance, but they decided to uphold the decision to take her medal away due to a zero tolerance policy for drug use.

The medication has since been taken off the list of prohibited substances and if that doesn’t annoy you, we don’t know what will up next.

Team Usa accuses the chinese gymnastics team of cheating.

China made olympic history when it won its first team gold medal in women’s gymnastics in 2008.

Making history, they managed to take first place, defeating team Usa with 188.9 points.

No one questioned whether or not China was the best team on the mat that day, but many people expressed concern over the athletes ages on the chinese side.

You see, all gymnasts competing in the year were required to be born in 1992 or earlier under the contentious age limit regulation that had been put into effect.

Despite the chinese government providing passports claiming that all of the team’s gymnasts were of legal age, media outlets and bloggers discovered paperwork showing that Hey Kitchen and Jang Yuan were both under the age of 16..

The two athletes being under the age limit implicated China’s victory, and the International Olympics Committee insisted that the fig launch an investigation into the matter.

The chinese gymnasts were declared to be of legal age per the legal documentation submitted by China by fig one month later.

Some people use this case to put an end to the age limit, pronouncing it invalid, while some question the objectivity of the fig’s inquiry, while others had doubts about fig’s investigation.

But in the end all that mattered was that China walked away with the gold and China has another age scandal now.

This entry sort of ties into the last one.

You see, 2008 wasn’t the only time the chinese gymnastics team was questioned about their age.

In April of 2010, the Ioc stripped China of their 2000 olympic team bronze medal after proving that a gymnast from that year’s team was too young to compete.

This was done with the help of a sports ministry probe that used x-ray bone analysis to expose that 15 000 young athletes in the Southern China Province of Guangdong were lying about their age.

This is still one of the worst child abuse scandals in the history of gymnastics.

Up next, Team Usa robbed of bronze medal.

The american team lost by half a point at the 1988 soul olympics, moving them down from third to fourth place.

But hey, that means they still got a medal right.

Wrong.

Team Usa was stripped of their medal before they even received it, due to a hidden rule that none of the olympians were aware of all.

This happened due to a simple misunderstanding, when one of Team Usa’s gymnasts jumped onto the podium while a competitor from the opposing team was still completing their course.

This action was deemed too unprofessional by the judges, and Usa was forced to forfeit their bronze medal.

A lot of people agreed with the decision, claiming that the gymnast got too ahead of herself and compared it to yelling.

I won before the race even gets underway, but it’s not like the Us team didn’t have their supporters.

In fact, a lot of people argued that this ruling was useless, since it would have not affected its outcome.

The team already had the medal in their bag before the other gymnast performed.

Team Usa claimed a warning would have been more appropriate.

However, the judges upheld their decision and, last but not least, Simone biles withdraws at the last moment.

The latest addition in gymnastics controversies came at the 2020 Tokyo olympics, when four-time gold medalist and quite possibly the biggest name in gymnastics, Simone viles, announced that she was withdrawing from the competition, citing mental health issues as the reason behind the last minute decision.

Many people were critical of this statement and claimed that the only reason biles was withdrawing was that she messed up on the vault.

But most of those accusations were just hearsay and biles received a lot of love from fans and teammates alike.

That’s a wrap for this video.

Out of all the controversies mentioned on today’s list, which one did you find most interesting?

Let us know in the comments below.

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