Parental support in sports development of Brazilian gymnasts participants in the Olympic Games (1980-2004)

 e sports development is in uenced by a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, talent, infrastructure, cultural traditions, government support, quali cations of the trainers, coach education, physical training system, the support of a multidisciplinary team and family support. It is possible to a rm that, within the childhood and youth sports context, coaches, parents, siblings, peers and even team managers form a multifaceted and complex social network that wields positive and negative in uence over the experience of young athletes. Di erent authors agree over the importance of parental support in the development of athletes, even when the achievement of high level sports performance is concerned. According to Kanters and Caper, the scienti c literature increasingly o ers evidence that not only do parents’ socialization activities in their children’s athletic life have an impact in the athlete’s initial level, but they also dictate beforehand the choices of permanence in sports in the future. Jowett and Timson-Katchis highlight that the time and e ort young athletes are capable of dedicating to training and competition are dependent on the material and emotional support o ered by parents and coaches. More specifically within Artistic Gymnastics, the in uence of the family is widely discussed and emphasized since it is a sport developed since early childhood, something that also happens with other sports such as Swimming, Tennis and Figure Skating. According to Nunomura and Oliveira, “[...] children depend on the parents to transport them to practices, to encourage a correct diet, to give emotional support, to cover costs of training, among other factors” (p.6). In addition, the parents’ opinion regarding trainers or even the methods used in the process of athletic improvement may increase or decrease the distance between coach and athlete, which can be conducive to respectful and trustworthy Abstract


Introduction
Parental support in sports development of Brazilian gymnasts participants in the Olympic Games  relationships or encourage discontinuity in training, due to strategies such as negative feedback, the search for a new trainer or changing of teams 1

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In respect to a possible negative in uence, studies show that parents often do not notice when their interference is interpreted by the child in ways that foster behaviors expressing pressure and anxiety 4 . In the short term, children tend to maintain their participation in sports in a manner by which they express the answers they perceive as expected by their parents; in the long term, however, children are susceptible to abandoning the sport in an early age. In their study about tennis athletes in youth categories, G et al. 3 stress that 36% of parents interfere or inhibit the athletic development of their children, through an emphasis on winning, unrealistic expectations, criticism and complaining 5 . L et al. 5 , supported by F and E 10 , theorize that parents' involvement in sports can be divided into three roles: provider, interpreter and role model.

Method
us, parental in uence in the sports development of athletes can be quite diverse, acquiring di erent characteristics in accordance with observed behavior. Additionally, research shows support to be the most important aspect o ered by parents, defined as multiple paths that include points referencing nancing and training logistics, as well as social-emotional and unconditional support 3 .
In this article, the "parental support" will be discussed through the perspective of gymnasts, by an Oral History perspective, with all Brazilian gymnasts who compete in Women's Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) at the summer Olympic Games .
For the development of this qualitative research, the Oral History method was used [11][12][13] , based on the possibility of obtaining information from people who participated in these important periods of WAG in Brazil, looking to the sports career of these gymnasts 14 . According to Q 14 : is method was chosen mainly due to the lack of available records around the sports development of these gymnasts in documents. In addition, it allows for the collection of detailed information regarding the events experienced in the sports career of each As sport providers, parents that make physical activity opportunities available to their children o er youth the chance to sample and experience sport (Côté, 1999). […] (Parents) also provided the nancial support needed to sustain the longterm e ort to develop talent (Bloom, 1985). e A known and proven manner, speci c to the human sciences, of obtaining information consists of collecting testimony from people who have this information. Recourse to these testimonies allows for the exploration of people's knowledge, but also of their representations, beliefs, values, opinions, feelings, hopes, projects, etc. (p.183). (Translated by the authors).
Oral History is an ample term that covers an amount of accounts around facts not registered by other types of documentation or which one seeks to complete. Collected through various forms of interviews, it registers the experiences of a single or several individuals from a single collectivity. In this case, a convergence of accounts around a single event or a period is sought (p. 19). (Translated by the authors).
Among the various techniques for the development of the Oral History method, "oral testimony" was used in this research. In oral testimony, the researcher proposes a theme around which to organize the life account of those to be studied 14 . e research, in a wider sense, is focused on a particular theme, the "history of sports life" of these gymnasts 16 , and, more speci cally in this article, the theme developed, based on the testimonies, as "parental support in sports development". second parental role of interpreter in uences children's perceptions of competence and the value they place on sports involvement (Fredricks & Eccles, 2004). Parental beliefs and expectations have been related to young athletes experiencing stress, anxiety, and burnout (Brustad, 1996).
[…] Regarding the third role of the parent, as a role model, parents may in uence a child's sport behavior by modeling reactions to situations (Fish & Magee, 2003), demonstrating how to perform sport skills and commit to vigorous training, and even in how they interact with those involved in sport (i.e., coaches, o cials, other parents and athletes) (p.487-8 e rst moment in the interview is conducted in a rather free form, starting with an ample theme 16 , which, in this study, was the sports history of each gymnast 16 . In a second moment, the researcher brings up generating themes, directing the conversation towards relevant issues of the participant's sports history, with the intention of delving deeper into certain subjects. A previously elaborated script focusing on prominent moments of the gymnasts' sports history is utilized in this moment of the interview, and, in the case of this article, the generating theme was "parental support in sports development". is research was previously approved by the Research Ethical Committee of University of Campinas/Faculty of Medicine. Procedure to signi cance, complying with their being bearers of meaning in relation to the analyzed material and to the intentions of the research" 15 (p.216). (Translated by the authors). e accounts given by the athletes around the same theme were grouped into each unit of analysis.
Among the forms that oral history can be constructed, the technique used in this study was cross-analysis. In cross-analysis, "oral evidence is treated as a source of information around which an expository text is organized" 13 (p.304). (Translated by the authors). Whenever the prime objective becomes analysis and not the presentation of stories of full lives, "the global form can no longer be directed by the life history as a form of evidence, but should emerge from the internal logic of the exposition" 13 (p.304). (Translated by the authors). In general, comparing the evidence from one interview with that of another and associated with evidence from other sources, whenever possible 13 . e analysis of the results was conducted from the data collected in the eld research, in the testimony of the collaborators by themes, in which the units of analysis were represented by the generating theme. Afterwards, each gymnast's data were crossed to allow the relations between them to be established and, from this point, confronted, highlighting and re ecting on the di erences and, mainly, the similarities in relation to the parental's support in the sports development of the gymnasts who participated in this research 13,17 .
Following that, a comparative analysis and a discussion around the data from the testimonies were undertaken, using the basis of information gathered in the literature studied, disagreeing, con rming or even o ering collaborations with new approaches.
is is the main contribution of Oral History, to bring information that is not to be found in o cial records or even to disagree with existing records, as new evidence, which might indicate paths for a new interpretation 13 .
For the comparison of the participants of this study, they were grouped by similarities in their stories as a whole, an inherent characteristic of oral history as a form of evaluating the coherence of testimonies 13 . us, three distinct groups emerged (TABLE 1) and the analysis was subsequently conducted following this same grouping. e transcribed testimonies were classi ed into units of analysis, that is, "sets that group according [...] in which the interviewer supports him or herself on one or several themes and, perhaps, on a few initial questions, thought of in advance, to subsequently improvise the other questions in accordance with his or her intentions and the responses obtained from the interlocutor 15 (p.190). (Translated by the authors). e study utilized unstructured interviews,

Group Gymnasts (n)
Pioneer Gymnasts: gymnasts representing Brazil in Olympic Games mainly in the 1980s. ese gymnasts, in regard to the posterior generations, experienced less support given to the training system when it comes to nancial conditions, material and human resources. ere was lack of support in these aspects in both, the clubs as well as the Brazilian National team. ese gymnasts aimed at a good participation in the Olympic Games, nevertheless without real chances of medals or not even Olympic nals.

3
Transition Gymnasts: this group without support and infrastructure, similar to what was experienced by the Pioneer group, nevertheless, at a given moment they had the opportunity to live a better phase in terms of infrastructure. e gymnasts got the rst Brazilian good results in international competitions.
4 New Generation Gymnasts: composed of gymnasts who joined the Brazilian squad when it was already structured with better conditions for an adequate sports preparation, in the similar standard of high level national teams worldwide who compete for medals in the World Championships and Olympic Games. 3

Results and discussion
Family support comprises part of the prominent Brazilian gymnasts' sports careers, mentioned with great importance in their testimonies by all the participants of this research.
According to S et al. 18 : In regards to the importance of this parental support, L and N 19 assert that the family is one of the main extrinsic motivational factors in the sporting life of a gymnast, which was truly possible to note in the families of all the gymnasts of this study. e testimonies will be replicated below so that the importance that gymnasts give to their relatives may be observed: Incentive is an essential adult activity for children/ adolescents to acquire self-esteem, control and consciousness of having a parent as an encouraging agent. It is an indication that the adult world performs an e ective activity over the sporting lives of children 18  My family also supported me, my mother and my father always gave me strength, I was always loved and praised very much. Everything I did, I was the most beautiful girl in the world, I was the cutest, you know, everything very positive. ey weren't parents who would meddle, they weren't parents who would meddle and want me to win, who would keep demanding. Whatever happened, I was the most beautiful girl in the world, so I believed them. ey said I was, so I was! I wasn't scared, not even insecure, I was very con dent and, since I was very competitive, I had a desire to be the best, I wanted to be better in everything, I wanted to win, I wanted the gold medal, I wanted to do more (Gymnast 1).
My family always supported me. My father was always involved, head of the delegation, he participated in the CBG during Fisher's b time, he was vice-president of the CBG. He was always club director, always tried to participate. My mother always gave her support, would take me to trainings, would pick me up, everything. Actually, I had a lot of support from them. It couldn't have been any other way. It depends a lot on the family, because it starts early. So, if the parents don't take the kids to the training, don't pick them up, there's no way how. My family went to see me at the Olympics, my parents and my brother (laughs). I liked it when they went. en we stayed there and went sight seeing. It was great! (Gymnast 2).
So, what stands out strongly in my memory is that I had to practice a physical activity, because that was already part of the family. And not only because my grandfather went to the Olympics in Berlin c , in 36. But, it was an important matter in my family. My father always took swimming classes, played soccer, my siblings always practiced artistic gymnastics, then rowing, then triathlon. My mother played volleyball in A strong parents support was reported by Gymnast 6, in uencing her motivation to become a gymnast and continuity in the sport quite a bit, even through di cult situations lived by the family, who did not want her to waste the opportunity: I wanted to stop many times. But my father always had some words: "oh... if you want to stop, I'll support you all the way. But we'll just keep studying, you can look for another sport, but it is your dream to go to the Olympics and when you become a teacher you'll talk about how you went to the Olympics", so I ended up staying. And there was an emotional part. My two sisters stopped. My father loved sports. And I could see him, very excited, very determined, striven to construct material. ere were times that we didn't have a xed place to train. We would go to a club, then, all of a sudden the club: "ah... I don't want you guys here anymore. Go somewhere else". And these clubs, we would train in the event space. So we would have to assemble and disassemble, reassemble and disassemble the equipment. And I would see my father with the thick gymnastics mat on top of his car going somewhere else, the equipment inside the car.
at's how it was, a lot of work. And when both of my sisters stopped, I didn't want to continue either. Because my father was very demanding, there was no ludic moment. Training with him was hard. And I was also not really wanting to train anymore. It had become boring. But even so I stayed: "gosh, but my father works so hard, he'll be so sad". I didn't want to disappoint. So I ended up continuing because I didn't want my My father always had a lot of [ nancial] di culty when he was young and today, the situation we live in is more comfortable, but my father struggled a lot to get here, so they've always been telling me, that nothing is free, that you have to dedicate yourself a lot, that you have to train, train and train 10 years to have something, a result and you might not even have it. So my parents, my family had a lot of in uence in my sports career.
My family always supported me a lot, without my family I wouldn't have been a gymnast, because, in whatever sport in the beginning, at any di culty the child wants to stop, wants to quit, always. Any sport. He or she might have talent to spare, but if the parent isn't saying: you're going. e child says that he is feeling lazy, that she doesn't feel well, but the parent says: you're going. I would go to the gym sick, my father would make me go, would make me in a way because he wanted my best. He would say: "I would like to be your coach to be inside the gym", because he knew my temper, he knew I was a worm, so that if I was here when you turned around I wouldn't be here anymore, I would already be doing something else. I was very smart from an early age, I had always been very energetic, very naughty, so if it hadn't been for my school, so this in uence to practice sports or a physical activity was always very strong in my family. And artistic gymnastics was a sport that, at the time, didn't have much media exposure.
[...] But they always supported me. Sometimes I remember how my father and my mother would perhaps have a con ict: "But might she really not be too young for this?", "No, but she likes it so if she likes it and doesn't complain, then let's leave it and let's trust the coach and let's trust that what they're saying is true, that she is talented, that she can go on and has the capacity for this". So, at a certain moment they also hesitated, without aunting and always encouraging. Because they saw that I was happy that way (Gymnast 3).
Gymnast 4 always had a lot of support from her family, so much that she trained in her father's gym for a few initial years, with equipment that he built, and was himself her coach for many years. rough the testimony, one can notice a very close relationship, even a certain prompting, an "obligation" to be a gymnast, even if unconscious on the part of her family, possibly for wanting too much to help her. I had it in my mind that the Olympics was something that was part of the process. It was something in which I was going to participate. And it wasn't a strategy to be like this, it was very natural. I think that nowadays a lot of people ask: "ah... what are you going to do with your life?" I think I always knew. I think my father would say so often when I was a kid: "ah..., when you grow up you're going to be a teacher, you're going to give classes". I didn't even think about it when I applied for college, and that was what I did. at's how it went. e incentive provided by relatives is fundamental: it is very complex in itself; it depends on various factors directly related to each other in a constructive manner in terms of the needs of the relatives and the children/adolescents. ere is no doubt that one of the essential roles of the father and of the mother is to encourage children to participate in sports and, therefore, provide father speci cally, I wouldn't have been a gymnast, wouldn't have become an athlete, nothing. And my mother was the more let's say a ectionate part, I give you strength, I help you, my father more severe and my mother on this side, like I would come home and say: "mom I'm tired", then my father would say: "no, you're going". My mother would say: "look, it's for your own good", would comfort me. And my sister always helped me at school, with assignments that I had to do. [...] My family always supported me, I never had any family problems, of not having my family with me.
Within the New Generation of gymnasts, the issue of family support and gymnast life is also unanimous Transition generation gymnasts (6 and 7) also speak about the parental support, but with less "obligation" to be an athlete: According to S et al. 18 : When I was in pain they treated me here at home, they would also help me with everything. When I left, they didn't want me to leave. It was complicated at rst, but later they came to understand me (Gymnast 10).
About my relationship with my family, it's always been good. ey always supported me, never complained. When I went to live on my own at age 11, my mom let me. Because there were some people she trusted. She was sure that nothing would happen with us and it was right there in São Paulo. Real close to Ribeirão. If anything happened she would get a car and be there on the same day. I have a younger sister. I have an older brother. My sister trained for about three years more or less, it was quite a bit, but she didn't like it very much. But they give me a lot of strength. Wow! A lot, a lot (Gymnast 9). R 8 , in the book "Little girls in pretty boxes", highlight the exaggeration of some parents in relation to the dedication to their daughters (gymnast and gure skater), and stresses how a few come to "live the life" of their daughters. e same author describes the exaggeration of some parents regarding the possibility of their children making it into the National United State Team and earning well: "With so many of the parents treating their children like commodities, it begins to seem normal; and no matter how harsh a parent might be, he or she can always rationalize by nding a parent who's worse." (p.149). L et al. 5 portrays how speci c behavior and attitudes by parents may help or inhibit the When children are involving in sports, it is necessary a close relationship with the family, guiding them around events, emotions, demands, diets, among other aspects, since parents, in general, are not experts and may show di culty dealing with the situations experienced by an athlete. Guidance for parents is important so that they are conscious regarding how they can aid or harm their children in sports. ey might often have good intentions, but the consequences of particular attitudes or excessive demands may leave a mark on a person's life, or even push her to quit the sport due to the in uence of these factors.
In some situations, parents' demands for results is seen as a negative form of incentive for children, as mentioned by "Gymnast 5" regarding unhealthy attitudes in relation to demands: I think something important that I think is important for every athlete, is to have family by his or her side. Not family that is demanding. Because I believe that family is the foundation of the athlete. Now, if the family starts to demand of a ve-year-old child that she has to be a winner, the child might, perhaps, not reach the stage of competition. Because in this phase it is when the child has to say, "dad, I did it!", and the parent: "wow son, congratulations!", has to be the rst one to applaud, not the rst to say: "today you didn't do a good cartwheel". So, I think that, really, what is necessary to point out is that the family should always be by the athlete's side, and not be demanding, being the rst to demand more from the athlete.
I was only ve years old when one day after a training session I told him (her father) that I didn't want to go up on the beam. I was afraid that the beam was too high and too thin. "Go up and have no fear. Daddy is right here waiting for you on the other end of the beam", he would say. I remembered his reply countless times in my life. Each time I struggled, daddy was waiting for me "on the other end of the beam" to make things better for me. Maybe it wasn't an accident that the beam became my favorite apparatus as high and thin as it was (p.8).
them with the closest cooperation, and in such a manner accelerate their sports readiness, their maturity and a great variety of activity in the world of elds, courts, pools and tracks (p.38).
(Translated by the authors). development of sports talent. is information could be passed on to parents with the objective of facilitating talent development and helping young athletes to have positive sports experiences. Assertions relevant for development would be those that include display of a ection and support; negative actions would be related to criticism, yelling and lack of incentive from the family.
In agreement with, J and T -K 1 a rm that it is necessary that there be a balance between the degree and nature of the in uences that the parents exert over their children and trainers, for excessive support on their part may provoke negative feelings, among which are pre-competition anxiety and friction with sports, and a distancing within the trainer-athlete dyad.
On the other hand, when well-guided, the parental's support may collaborate in this process, for the lines of communication between parents and children may create opportunities for the children to communicate their feelings about the process 4 . ese paths may be encouraged by coaches and, certainly, may help in the athlete's development process.
e Andreea R 20, d biography, provides an account of the importance her father had from the start of sports practice and of his in uence in the emotional aspect: Parents' behavior around their children's inquiries and observations may have a relevant in uence and should be considered by all those involved in this process, as well as guided.
According to S et al. 18 , "[...] the manner in which fathers and mothers act towards their children seems to be signi cant for the establishment of a set of well-de ned lines of participation in the sports life of children" (p.41). (Translated by the authors).
In regards to this proximity and parents' guidance, Gymnast 6 comments that, starting at a particular moment, her parents were called to discuss the seriousness of the work, the real possibilities for With my family and sporting life: everything connected, interconnected, ghts at the gym, ghts at home, ghts at home, ghts at the gym, there was no separating them. ey had to change their routine because of me. My mother wouldn't buy cream-filled cookies because I couldn't eat them, my brother would say: "mom, I'd really like to eat some pizza...", but my mother would say: "let's wait for her to travel". But I didn't understand that, I would get angry, I wanted some too, but it was for my own good. Now I see that, but back then I couldn't.
The testimonies demonstrate that all of the collaborators of this study had signi cant support from their families to become gymnasts, by o ering an adequate family structure so they could concentrate on trainings, without further family problems. e family was, at many times, a determinant factor in the process, especially in regards to motivation to continue with daily trainings, or even stimulation in precise moments, important ones in the life of a child/athlete, as accounted by Gymnast 2: When I moved to the Center of Excellence that had the selection, everything changed. ere was weight control and up until then there hadn't been, there was work to do during vacation, so things started to get more serious, there was more parent involvement as well. ey already knew that we couldn't be gymnasts only in the gym, we had to be gymnasts outside, at home. So I couldn't go out at night anymore, I couldn't have dinner out anymore because I had to train the following day, I had to rest, I couldn't go to an event late, so from that moment my life started to change. At 13 years old I started to not be a normal person, so I couldn't miss out on training, I would have to go sick, if I didn't I would have to call and justify the absence, the involvement grew. e demands did as well! I remember I loved it, I think it wasn't anything too severe. I don't have many remarkable memories, to be honest. I remember the rst competition, I remember I didn't even do very well (laughs), I didn't even understand why the other girls received medals (laughs), I didn't get any medals (laughs) and cried a lot (laughs). But my mother always, of course, stimulated me. One has to have parental support, or else... Gymnast 8, who always trained in the same places as Gymnast 7, with similar guidance, also speaks about her family's behavior in helping her: Based on this relationship of stimulus and support from the family, eight out of the ten gymnasts mention their parents as the people who know the most about their sports careers, always demonstrating complicity and support, as Gymnast 8 cites: "My mother would tell my story the exact same way as me. She knows everything".
Gymnast 2 also mentions her family's participation in her sports life: "I think my parents know my entire story (laughs). And my father, since he was involved in gymnastics, also travelled. He went to the World Championship, to the Pan as head of the delegation, he was always with me".
Gymnast 9 talks about this complicity with her mother, even with her daughter living far away: e results of this study corroborate, therefore, the ones mentioned by L et al. 5 , by indicating that the development of sports talents depend not only on the e orts of the athletes, but also on a support system in which, many times, parents are the great supporters, investing e orts and resources of a diverse nature in sports objectives.
With unanimity in the testimonies in relation to the importance of parental support, this research con rms the existing data in other sports around the same theme; and the recording of how support was developed with this group of high performance gymnasts stands apart, due to the di culty in accessing this type of data from international-level athletes and because of the particularities of this sport, of it generally being started at an early age.
Moreover, it is important to emphasize that this type of study seeks not only to register and divulge data about the development process of high performance gymnasts, but that it also brings re ections to coaches, families and managers around the conduction of this process.
Based on the premise that the family has no experience in sports, it is the role of the physical education professional, in this case, of coaches and/ or sports institutions, to guide parents of children in sports. With this end, the institutions and coaches If someone had to tell my story, it would be my mother. Most things, going through some di cult moment and she was always by my side. She knows, ever since I went to the rst competition she had to struggle to get money to buy a coat, to pay for the plane ticket, even today. Competitions nowadays, she can tell, sort of, how they went, and not really the trainings, because she could never accompany me. But she can tell you well about trips and my humor outside of the gym. their daughters and the course of action to be taken at home to help in the trainings: themselves need to know of the importance of the family's healthy presence in sport, which does not always happen, generating distance between coaches and relatives, who could join forces toward the a. e gymnasts authorized the use of their names for scienti c purposes, an important fact for studies within Oral History, which normally have the names of their subjects exposed due to their importance. Since the number of subjects in this type of qualitative research is not large, it is important to highlight their relevance in the context of the research. b. First president of the CBG (Brazilian Gymnastics Federation). c. In Rowing. d. Romanian gymnast "All around" champion in the Sydney Olympic Games/2000.
through development of athletes. e coach-athletefamily triad needs to be considered in long-term athlete development, starting at the sports initiation up through the highest level sports performance.