>>>No, though that team of women who fit the physical profile for being good at gymnastics was a lot better than it would have been back in the days when black and Latina girls weren't given a chance to compete at that level.
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>I wonder if that's more about socio-economics: unlike football and other sports that can be practiced on a paddock or in a hall, gymnastics requires specialist equipment and constant supervision which is not cheap. The sort of sacrifice needed to allow somebody from a poor neighborhood to become an elite gymnast, can be seen if you look at the life story of the highest profile black gymnasts like Gabby Douglas and her remarkable mother and siblings, or Simone Biles whose grandparents saved her from drug addicted hopeless parents including a caricature absent father. I'm confident that there are no elite white gymnasts of drug addict parents so these sorts of successes are a story of strong family leadership rather than race IMHO.

No question that economics plays a role. Poking around to answer Bill's post, I saw something about gymnastics becoming more expensive after Mary Lou Retton made it more popular.

Tamar