My niece competed in gymnastics at national level, just steps to be olympic competitor she started at i believe like 8 YO, her coach never yelled at her or any of the group other than in an encouraging way. There are bad and good coaches out there some of them leave their life for the sport.
Sometimes kids overwork their heart and coach is supposed to stop the kid to protect their health. Coach can't tell the kid in front of the group "You worked too hard, come stand here and rest", this would make the whole group to feign being overworked. Instead the coach is saying "You're not working hard enough, come here and stand in front of the group as a punishment for being lazy".
As a former educator, that is a horrible way to deal with that situation. The kid learns the wrong lesson and feels terrible about it. Lazy adult "solutions" like that can traumatize children.
The proper solution is just tell the kid to take a breather without stating a reason (maybe tell them privately how to notice on their own when they are overworking themselves). The other kids won't notice or care.
(And if some kid is looking for an excuse not to do the exercises... why are they even there? And who cares? It's an extracurricular, the point is to get out of it what you put in. It's not boot camp.)
Sure, they are there to be champions. And every girl goes to Cali to be a star. But at what cost and to what gain and at what odds are all questions parents need to consider. The article largely agrees that the way it’s done is according to the incentives. It’s the job of parents to say nope when the enterprise is to the detriment of the long term health of the child. Which is why I largely blame the parents not the coaches. The parents are PAYING for precisely this treatment and it’s grotesque.
First, you are literally punishing kid for being overworked, while claiming they are slackers are teaching them to overwork themselves even more next time.
The harder the kids try, the more the kid will be punished and claimed to be lazy.
Second, you are lying to the kids, they have no way to actually figure out rules.
Are you a professional coach or just think it would work this way?
The athletes we are discussing are already selected as fit for the specific sport. All of them are very tolerant to stress from the training and competition. Unless stress of not doing exercise (correctly) is higher than stress from doing it (correctly) there won't be progress.
What for an outsider looks like abuse, for athletes is within tolerable limits.
Selection is for physical capabilities (experienced coaches are actually looking at both parents in addition to child assessment). Stress tolerance is built up gradually as a side effect.