One of my boys was a competitive gymnast and was at a level 10. We traveled around and went to meets all over our region for six years. He competed in the same rotations as Olympians from several countries. His gym had a charter school in it that was scheduled around the student's workouts. He was working out close to 32 hours a week. As good as he was, and as hard as he worked at it, there was a huge gap between him and the truly elite.She's only been in the sport for almost a year and a half total, and up till now she's been in the 'recreational' gym instead of the more serious one? She's testing into level 4 now, but I'll admit I don't know the details of what that actually means. We're being told she should have been working with the team coaches much earlier, instead of the 'rec' gym. Makes sense, because she advances crazy fast in the occasional private lessons with the team coaches. My wife is much more clear on all this, it makes my head spin trying to keep up with all the terminology and stuff. At any rate, she advances through their levels very quickly, certainly faster than her peers. Whether or not she's olympics bound, I have no idea; guess we'll wait and see. But they're letting us know the path she's on leads to a lot more time in the gym and very likely homeschooling.
Do I regret it? I have mixed emotions. On the plus side, it taught him incredible discipline and perseverance. It taught him to live with disappointment, a strong work ethic and confidence. On the minus side, it was very expensive (in the ballpark of $10k/yr), it isolated him socially from the non-gym rats, it left no time for him to do normal kid things, and finally it took so much focus from the entire family that I often felt the other kids were not getting the attention they should have.
Seriously off topic. PM me if you want more info.