Sports
Explained: The rules for under-18s competing in the Paris Olympics
As the eyes of the sporting world turn to host city Paris, extra focus will fall on the hundreds of children competing at the 2024 Olympic Games.
While some sports — including diving, gymnastics, wrestling and boxing — have minimum ages for when athletes can take part, others, such as skateboarding, surfing and table tennis, have no restrictions.
Skateboarding, which made its Olympics debut at the Tokyo Games in 2021 (delayed a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic), attracts a particularly young field, with Finland’s Heili Sirvio and Hasegawa Mizuho of Japan, who are 13, and Zheng Haohao, a Chinese athlete who is just 11 years old, appearing in the French capital.
So what are the rules on under-18s performing at the Games? How do these differ between various sports? Where do these children stay and how are they looked after?
What is the minimum age requirement for the Olympics?
There is no specific age limit to compete at the Games. Age restrictions are set by the international federations in charge of each sport, rather than the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Arguably the most famous performance by a child at the Olympics was Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci receiving a series of perfect 10 scores from the judges at the 1976 Montreal Games when she was 14.
Comaneci was 14 when received a perfect score at the 1976 Olympics (AFP via Getty Images)
Several Olympic sports have no age restrictions, at either end of the scale. In skateboarding at these Games, for example, Great Britain & Northern Ireland have 16-year-olds Sky Brown and Lola Tambling competing alongside Andy Macdonald, who turns 51 next week.
However, for most other sports, there is a minimum age. For example, female gymnasts must now be at least 16 — and there have been growing calls for that to be raised to 18, in line with their male equivalents — while divers must be at least 14, as was the case with Team GB’s Tom Daley at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China. In judo, it’s 14, and in wrestling it’s 18.
In boxing, the minimum age is 19 and the maximum is 39. Special permission was given to Finland’s Mira Potkonen who was 40 in Tokyo after the Olympics were delayed by a year due to the pandemic. She went on to finish third in the women’s lightweight category, becoming the oldest boxer to win a medal at the Games.
The men’s football event is essentially an under-23s competition, but each 18-strong squad is allowed three overage members.
In the UK, athletes have to be at least 20 for marathons/race-walking and 18 to take part in throwing events, the heptathlon and decathlon and the 10,000m. Athletes as young as 16 can appear in other track events so long as they have “demonstrated a consistent level of performance, as well as previous experience at major international competition, which suggests that selection for senior competition is appropriate for their long-term development”.
In Paris, this is set to include 17-year-old Phoebe Gill in the women’s 800m. She could become the youngest British track athlete at an Olympics for more than 40 years.
How are child athletes protected at the Games?
At the Tokyo Olympics, the IOC brought in chaperones for under-16 athletes.
This time, the IOC is encouraging each national team to have a safeguarding officer and is offering two extra accreditations for welfare officers.
Athletes aged under 18 are allowed to stay at the Olympic Village, home to around 10,000 competitors across the Games, situated in the Saint-Denis area of northern Paris, near the Stade de France. However, whether they actually do so is down to each individual country.
Athletes under 18 will have to pair up with a buddy when they walk around the Olympic Village (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
Scott Field, director of communications for Team GB, explained how careful attention is being paid to who their youngest athletes share a room with.
“We have a welfare plan that dictates how sports should manage where and who athletes room with, in the Olympic Village or other accommodation,” Field told The Athletic. “Under-16s would have a chaperone with them, who must also accompany them when outside of the Olympic Village/their satellite accommodation.
“We have an extensive welfare guide that supports young people in their stay at the Olympics. We also have a dedicated group of designated safeguarding officers who are on hand to provide welfare support throughout the Games.”
Australia has decided the three youngest athletes in its 460-strong team — Arisa Trew and Chloe Covell, both 14, and 15-year-old Ruby Trew, who are all skateboarders — will stay in a hotel rather than the athletes’ village, UK newspaper The Guardian has reported.
Those under-18s who are in the Olympic village will not share a bedroom with an adult. The apartments will have a supervisor, and the under-18s will have to pair up with a buddy when they walk around the athletes’ village. They will have a supervisor with them for any trips outside the village (requiring consent from parents), or they can be checked out by their parents.
The IOC added this year’s Olympics will have “the most comprehensive package of mental health and safeguarding tools, initiatives and services than any other sporting or Olympic event in history”. This includes having more than 160 accredited welfare officers from 87 national Olympic committees at the Games, a new AI-powered monitoring service to protect athletes from online hate, and two safeguarding officers in the Olympic Village.
What concerns has this led to?
In recent years, sexual-abuse cases, doping scandals and faking ages have shone a light on the concerns around the exploitation of child athletes.
This was seen most recently with the doping case involving Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who was 15 when she won gold at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. It emerged she had previously tested positive for trimetazidine, a heart medication banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and Valieva received a four-year ban, backdated to her positive result in December 2021.
Her young age fuelled a debate as to why only she had been punished, and not the Russian doctors who gave her the drugs. The Court of Arbitration for Sport revealed Valieva had been given 56 different medications and supplements between the ages of 13 and 15.
Travis Tygart, the United States’ anti-doping chief, said the number of medications given to her was “sickening”. Olivier Niggli, the director general of the WADA, described it as “shocking”, and said Valieva was “sacrificed” to protect those responsible.
Valieva won gold in Beijing but was later banned for four years (Lintao Zhang/Getty Images)
Under WADA’s code, under-16s are “protected persons”, which means they are subjected to lighter penalties, adding to the fears around exploitation.
Valieva’s case led to the International Skating Union raising the minimum age for athletes in its most high-profile competitions from 15 to 17, a change that would be phased in over three years before the next Winter Olympics in Italy in early 2026.
Meanwhile, the U.S. gymnastics sex abuse scandal saw Larry Nassar, a former doctor for USA Gymnastics, convicted and sentenced to over 300 years in prison in 2018 after being accused of abuse by more than 250 athletes, including four-time Olympic gold medallist Simone Biles. In the UK, a report into gymnastics in 2022 found there had been an epidemic of abuse, which included young athletes being starved and made to hang from the rings used in one of the sport’s events as punishment.
Going further back, X-ray bone analysis in 2009 revealed 3,000 young Chinese athletes had faked their ages — giving them an unfair advantage in competition.
Former WADA deputy director general Rob Koehler is now director general of Global Athlete, a group that has concerns about children competing at the Olympics at all.
“If you look at the Valieva case, it clearly indicated that young kids should not be going to the Games,” Koehler told The Athletic. “In any other professional sport, and this is professional sport, there are age limits — for example, in the NHL (the top ice-hockey league in the U.S. and Canada), before you can be drafted. They should use the Youth Olympics for youth athletes. That’s where there’s extra attention, time spent on education and time spent on culture.
“The WADA code also treats under-16s differently. That alone means you lose all the harmonisation and the quality.
“Do you want a 15-year-old child to have that much pressure on them at the Olympic Games? It’s a tough place to be.
“We think there needs to be age limits and they should be put in straight away.”
(Top photo: Skateboarder Zheng Haohao will compete in the Paris Olympics at age 11; He Canling/Xinhua via Getty Images)
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President Donald Trump pardoned five former NFL players on Thursday night.
White House pardon czar Alice Mary Johnson announced the pardons in a post on social media. Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry and the late Billy Cannon were granted clemency.
President Donald Trump listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
“As football reminds us, excellence is built on grit, grace, and the courage to rise again. So is our nation,” Johnson wrote in a post on X.
She added that Dallas Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones shared the news “personally” with Newton, who was a three-time Super Bowl winner with the Cowboys.
Klecko, a former New York Jets star and Pro Football Hall of Famer, pleaded guilty to perjury when he lied to a federal grand jury that was investigating insurance fraud.
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Dallas Cowboys guard Nate Newton (61) in action against the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park on Nov. 10, 1996. (James D. Smith/USA TODAY Sports)
Newton, who was a six-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro selection, pleaded guilty to a federal drug-trafficking charge after law enforcement discovered $10,000 in his pickup truck as well as 175 pounds of marijuana in a vehicle in an accompanying car driven by another man.
Lewis, who won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Ravens, pleaded guilty in a drug case in which he used a cellphone to try to set up a drug deal soon after his former team selected him with the No. 5 overall pick of the 2000 draft. He was the Offensive Player of the Year in 2003.
Henry, who was a Pro Bowl running back that played for three teams in his seven-year NFL career, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic cocaine for financing a drug ring that moved between Colorado and Montana.
Oakland Raiders tight end (33) Billy Cannon catches a pass against the Green Bay Packers during Super Bowl II at the Orange Bowl on Jan. 14, 1968. (Tony Tomsic/USA TODAY NETWORK)
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Cannon, a star with the Houston Oilers and Oakland Raiders, admitted to counterfeiting in the mid-1980s. He was the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner while at LSU. His pardon came posthumously as he died in 2018.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Sports
Commentary: Start talking three-peat! Dave Roberts believes these Dodgers can be better than ever
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — On the day Kiké Hernández came home, meaning the whole gang was returning for a run at a third consecutive World Series championship, I asked Dodgers manager Dave Roberts an obvious question.
Could this be his best team ever?
Relaxed and beaming throughout his annual Cactus League media day appearance Thursday at a local hotel, Roberts gave an obvious answer.
“Yeah,” he said.
As in, duck.
Yes, these Dodgers have a team that could be better than the teams that have dominated baseball the last two years. Yes, these Dodgers could be better than a group that produced two MVPs, two World Series MVPs, and a passel of All-Star appearances.
Take a champion, add baseball’s best reliever and one of its best young hitters, then do the math.
Yes, yes, and oh yeah.
“On paper, it could be [the best],” Roberts said. “Looking at the guys in their prime, the experience, the talent, the starters, the pen, the depth of the young players … probably the best team we’ve had on paper.”
Roberts is right. Who is even close to the Dodgers? Who can seriously contend with the Dodgers? Who would have a chance in a seven-game series against the Dodgers?
The answer is, nobody.
Adding reliever Edwin Díaz and outfielder Kyle Tucker, frankly, is just piling on.
Instead of the usual criticism that the Dodgers are ruining baseball, Thursday’s interview session was appropriately filled with talk about how nobody in baseball can ruin the Dodgers.
“It does get lost, the things that we do well,” Roberts said. “Scouting and player development, I think we do as well as anybody in baseball … to get superstars to play well every night, to put out a good product every single night, I think we do a good job at that.”
To understand why the Dodgers’ domination is beyond much of the payroll criticism, check out the last big transactions before Friday’s start of spring training, deals which included a one-year contract for Hernández and a one-year extension for Max Muncy.
At first glance, they didn’t really need either player.
Hernández has struggled during recent regular seasons while Muncy always seems to get hurt. Both players are aging and expendable and it seems like the Dodgers would be fine without them.
But upon further inspection, the heart of the Dodgers’ efforts are fueled by guys like these.
“That’s why the biggest conversation should be that instead of a payroll question,” said Roberts. “Why are we good for baseball? Because our players play the game the right way. When you watch our team play, there’s not anyone that can say our guys don’t respect the game and play the game the right way. We’re good because we play the game the right way and because we give our fans a great product every single night.”
Hernández is a postseason superstar, with an .826 OPS while seemingly making every big postseason play that comes at him.
He hit three home runs in the NLCS clincher against the Chicago Cubs in 2017. He homered in the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory in the NLDS clincher against the San Diego Padres in 2024.
Then, more impactful than all of that, it was his decision to cheat in while playing left field in the ninth inning that led to a catch-and-throw double play that clinched the Dodgers’ victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 6 of the World Series. All of that while nursing an elbow that would later require surgery.
““To play through it and not complain was pretty amazing,” said Roberts. “When it comes to crunch time, he can be counted on.”
Muncy is like Hernández. You forget about him until October, a month when he will be remembered forever.
He set a major league record by reaching base in 12 consecutive plate appearances in the 2024 NLCS against the New York Mets. He hit a home run in the eighth inning to spark the Dodgers’ comeback in last season’s Game 7 win.
Guess who has hit the most postseason home runs in Dodger history? Muncy, seriously, with 16 rockets in 259 at-bats. And to think when the Dodgers signed him to a minor-league contract before the 2017 season, he was a fringe player with seemingly no future.
“I think we’ve built something very good, very consistent, and I’m proud of it, I really am,” Roberts said. “It’s really special what we have, this whole operation.”
In Thursday’s final few moments before the start of the race to a three-peat, Roberts allowed himself the luxury of reminiscing on a memorable postseason that included a monumental Game 7 victory created by the rich Dodgers’ ability to do the little things.
Roberts talked about Tommy Edman’s sliding-stop-and-throw to third base, Miguel Rojas’ throw home to Will Smith, two of a dozen little things that created a championship.
“It’s going to go down as one of the best games of all time,” Roberts said of Game 7. “I do think about a lot of things that would have changed the game … yes, I’m amazed … we got our breaks, we had big hits … man, when I think about that, it still blows my mind.”
Pitchers and catchers begin work this weekend. If you believe the manager, prepare to have your minds re-re-blown.
Sports
US Olympic figure skaters speak out on judging that denied them gold amid widespread questions
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Madison Chock and Evan Bates have responded to questions over judging in the recent Olympic ice dance pairs final.
The couple was looking to defend their gold medal, but came in second to the French duo of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.
A French judge graded Beaudry and Cizeron higher than Chock and Bates, which ultimately helped thrust the French team to gold over the Americans. The judging has been the topic of controversy on social media, with some arguing that Chock and Bates should have graded higher.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States compete during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Chock and Bates were asked by NBC News how they felt about the judging.
“We’ve certainly gone through a roller coaster of emotions, especially in the last 24 hours,” Chock said. “And I think what we will take away is how we felt right after our skates and how proud we were of what we accomplished and how we handled ourselves throughout the whole week. Putting out four great performances at the Olympic Games is no small feat, and we’ve got a lot to be proud of.”
Chock and Bates were trailing the French couple by 0.46 of a point entering the free dance Wednesday night, and they were searching for their first ice dance Olympic medal with hopes that it would obviously be gold.
Their matador routine, dancing to a rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” drew cheers from the crowd, and they finished with tears in their eyes.
They finished with 224.39 after notching a 134.67 score in their free dance.
Chock and Bates are two-time team gold winners after Sunday’s Team USA victory, but they had to watch one more routine to see if they could capture gold when Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron took the ice.
But the judges decided the French duo did enough to defeat the Americans in the end.
US FIGURE SKATING STAR ALYSA LIU OPENS UP ON BEING TARGETED BY CHINESE SPYING OPERATION
Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States react to seeing that their scores earned them the silver medal after competing during the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Beaudry and Cizeron scored a 135.64 in the free dance for a total of 225.82.
Chock and Bates were looking to experience receiving their gold medals on the podium after a delayed reception of their medals in the 2022 games.
Chock and Bates initially had to settle for team silver with their American teammates on the podium at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Team Russia and Kamila Valieva, who was 15 at the time, stood above them with their gold medals.
It wasn’t until the end of January 2024, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found Valieva guilty of an anti-doping rule violation, when Chock, Bates and the U.S. were declared the rightful 2022 gold medalists.
Valieva tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned substance, during an anti-doping test at the Russian Figure Skating Championships in December 2021. She was suspended for four years and stripped of all competitive results since that date.
Chock and Bates spoke about what their message to Valieva would be today during an interview at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee media summit in October.
“It’s hard to, I think, imagine what a 15-year-old has gone through and under that kind of situation,” Bates said. “And I know how stressful it is, being an elite athlete as an adult, as a 36-year-old. And I think that grace should be given to humans across the board. And we can never really know the full situation, at least from our point of view. … I genuinely don’t know what I would say to her.”
Chock added, “I would just wish her well like as I would. I think life is short. And, at the end of the day, we’re all human just going through our own human experience together. And regardless of what someone has or hasn’t done and how it has affected you, I think it’s important to remember we’re humans as a collective, and we’re all here for this, our one moment on earth, at the same time. And I just wish people to have healthy, happy lives, full of people that love them.”
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Silver medalists Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the United States skate with their medals after competing in the ice dancing free skate in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Milan, Italy, Feb. 11, 2026. (Francisco Seco/AP Photo)
Chock and Bates had to wait more than two years after the initial Olympics to get their rightful gold medals, and they were finally presented with them during a ceremony at the Paris Olympics in summer 2024.
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