Gymnastic age requirements

After their gold medal performance, some are calling the 2012 United States women's gymnastics team the greatest in U.S. history.

Historically, the average age of U.S. women's gymnastics teams has hovered around age 16 -- and this year is no different. On the 2012 U.S. women's gymnastics team, ages of the athletes range from 15 to 18 years of age.

But we were curious: does the age of a gymnast really matter? Are younger gymnasts putting their bodies at risk by competing so heavily while so young? We asked University of Minnesota experts to find out.