When did the age change for the Olympics to 16?

The age for the Olympics isn't 16, but certain sports have age requirements. For gymnastics it's 16, with the birthday having to be in the Olympic year. For figure skating it's 15 before the ISU fiscal year in which competitions are held. I believe the FIG (gymnastics) rule started about 6 years ago.

Tom Daley’s age hasn’t been an issue. The British Olympic diver is 14 and his youth—his braces were only recently removed—makes his story compelling.

Nor has anyone made a fuss about Antoinette Joyce Guedia Mouafo. At 12, the swimmer from Cameroon is the youngest athlete in the Beijing Olympics and had never swum in a 50-meter pool.

Then there are the three female Chinese gymnasts—He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Jang Yilin—who won gold for China in team gymnastics. The rules dictate that gymnasts must turn 16 during the year of the Olympics in order to compete, but photos, competition records and past media reports suggest the three Chinese gymnasts might be much younger.

The IOC and the body that governs world gymnastics say their passports prove that they meet the age requirement.

Age rules at the Olympics are set by the federations that run the sports, and many don’t have any limits.

The gymnastics age requirement was adopted following criticism that girls 14 and under were being exploited. It is supposed to protect the physical and psychological health of young athletes—primarily young women whose bodies are still growing.

Figure-skating has a minimum age of 15 for similar reasons.

“It’s a matter of health and taking care of the gymnast,” said Philippe Silacci, spokesman for the International Gymnastics Federation, known by the French-language acronym FIG. “I think I can make the point this way: Try to put a 12-year-old boy in a Formula One car and see what happens.”

Nadia Comaneci was 14 when she won her first Olympic gold medal in 1976. Despite Comaneci’s stardom, the sport was criticized and sometimes even athletes under 14 were given exemptions to compete.

FIG raised the minimum age from 14 to 15 in 1981. In 1997, it went to 16. Boosting the minimum age was supposed to encourage coaches to go easier on younger athletes.

Setting age minimums can also create a different problem—age falsification.

Reports of the practice go back several decades, involving primarily gymnasts from eastern Europe. Chinese gymnast Yang Yun, who won a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympics, later acknowledged in a television interview that she was 14 when she competed in Sydney.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_gy...

Currently, gymnasts must be at least sixteen years of age, or turning sixteen within the calendar year,the age limit had been 10 years on the year of competing up to 1998 when irish gymnast Sean Lynch broke his leg compete in the european qualifiers,after which the age limit was changed. to compete in senior-level events.

Well that is only for certain spots, such as womens gymnastics. Not all sports have that age limit.