The International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed today that it has asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate the Chinese gymnastics underage fiasco, following new evidence that at least two gymnasts competed under the legal age in the Olympics.
A hacker by the handle of “stryde.hax” (every time I read that I think to myself “Does he use Stridex?”) tracked down some evidence of the real birthdates of He Kexin and Yang Yilin that shows that they are actually 14 years old. Basically, the Chinese government had any traces of their actual birthdates deleted from everywhere — even Google’s cache — but this hacker tracked it down in the document translation cache of Chinese search giant Baidu. Which isn’t really hacking so much as it is, ya know, good old-fashioned American ingenuity. You can check out the documents here and here, but they’re in Chinese so good luck with that. You can also check out stryde.hax’s blog on the issue here. (Thanks Emily for those links!)
Emmanuelle Moreau, IOC’s Media Relations Manager in Beijing, said in an email that, “the IOC has therefore asked the International Gymnastics Federation to endeavour to find out more. We understand they are doing so immediately.â€
I know a lot of you feel like I — and maybe Americans in general — have been making too much of a fuss about this, but I disagree. This isn’t about getting a gold medal for America, at least not in my mind. If the Olympics are going to be worth anything at all, people have to play by the rules. This includes China. Hopefully there will be repercussions here.
The Chinese govt. has dumped countless billions into this publicity spoogefest, and this little matter is not going to get in the way of their milking the Olympics for every bit of fake-glory.
People are not like silicon chips, they don’t really get faster and powerful according to some mysterious Moore’s Law of people; there’s all manner of ‘bending’ of the rules to remain competitive.
You are absolutely right, they Olympics should be fair.
At first I thought it was a bit ridiculous to be like ‘you should give us the medals!’… actually I still think is ridiculous because America isn’t the only country that lost to them. If anything, the girls that came in 4th place should be angrier than everyone else.
What are they gonna do when they finally accept those girls are 14? are they just gonna take away the gold medals and give it to the ones in second and so on? I guess re-doing the competition would be too much work…
It’s about freakin’ time! If it wasn’t so OBVIOUS how young these girls are I don’t think it would be a big deal, but they look like *children* not young women. Did China want to win that desperately? They’ll be ridiculously amazing at the next Olympics, why not just wait? I hope they do take away their medals. They broke the rules, therefore should be disqualified. That’s the way it works, or at least *should* work!
Nothing will be done is my guess
i really feel sorry for these little girls. they were, overall, the better gymnasts. it’s a shame their government put them in this position.
this rule makes sense because it was put in place to help keep kids safe and prevent permanent injury. it’s not a rule that should be blown off.
it continues to sicken me that the chinese government has no compassion or desire to protect it’s children. compared to its slaughtering of baby girls and sweat shops, this rule violation is insignificant. however, it is yet another example of how the chinese government has no compassion for its children; no desire to protect them and how it continues to exploit its children.
Yes! Finally Nastja will get the Gold medal she deserved in the uneven bars. I nearly punched my TV screen when they decided that even though THE SCORE WAS TIED!!! the chinese underage girl would get gold and her silver.
I grew up in California– in a predominately Asian community. I’m not asian myself, but from what I’ve collected… asians girls do look young for their age. I have asian friends in college who can still get “youth” discounts on bus tickets, movie tickets, and at restaurants.
The NBC coverage of the gymnastics were horrible..
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-olysound20-2008aug20,0,991019.story
The only people who actually BELIEVE the BS coming out of the NBC commentators’ mouths most be total morons. Their comments are obviously biased.
When He Kexin was recieving her gold medal for the uneven bars, one of the announcers Al Trautwig said “Does she really think she won the gold?” I swear, at that moment, I wanted to fly myself to Beijing and slap his ugly, pale-ass face. And the other announcers weren’t any better. As a journalism student, I found their unprofessional broadcasting extremely disgusting– it was a total insult to the field of journalism.. that makes even the paparazzi look decent.
And ps: the sweatshops exist b/c Americans are such consumer-whores. And the girls on the team don’t look too unhappy. They didn’t give off signs of being oppressed. Even before they won the medals, they looked like they were having fun.. just like all the other teams– except for the USA team who looked absolutely pissed throughout (the women’s team, not the men’s.. the men’s team looked pretty chill and happy to be there).
FUCKING GIRLS 4
I think Chelse made some good counter-arguments. Sure, the hacker may have “found” some document online with He Kexin’s alleged real age but nothing online should be taken as serious, indisputable facts when anyone can post anything they like on the internet. Besides, it’s up to the Olympic committee to deal with it – this is something we are in no control of. What we can definitely control is the information we choose to accept; obviously, the less biased the better. Chelse was right about the BS coming from NBC commentators. If I love Liukin’s routines it’s because she has the form and grace evident in her execution that is missing from many shorter/stouter-looking gymnasts and not because the NBC commentators put her on the pedestal as some gymnastics goddess and give little or no credit when other non-American gymnasts perform well.
Chelse, you ROCK.
14, 13, 12? who cares. all i care is that those that didn’t win the gold damn sure better do a good job putting a good crease in my new dress slacks in about 6 months.
I am Australian and don’t care much for the Olympics but this whole chinese underage thing has really pissed me off. i know a girl who should be competing in the olympics for BMX but she is underage….she has beat the two girls who are representing Australia. Now we could have just lied and said she was old enough but we didnt. Rules are rules and they should not be broken especially by the host nation.
well, i wonder u guys have been ever to China before, or have you ever know any Chinese girls. most of us look much younger then our ages, I means compare to the American girls. I am 23 years old, i am not an athlete, i just graduated from my college last year, but i look like a high school girl. i am working in a exporting company, so i knew a lots of foreigners who r from all over the world, 90% of them didn’t believe that i am 23 years old before i took out my ID card.
and those gymnasts girls, they do a lost of exercise everyday, most of them are anaemic in order to control their weight, so i have no doubt about their ages, even they do look like “children”. but when they retire from the gymnasts, they become fat and more “woman”, u may google “liuxuan”, which used to be a famouse gymnasts athlete, she is the good example to make u gus shut up.
let’s see how the USA get their metals. Liukin, yes, she looks hot, she has a good body , but i really don’t think she has good skill and good personality. if u gues have ever watched olympic games vedio, u will know what is “frog legs” we are talking about. u guys thought He Kexin is not worth the gold metal, we think Liukin is not worth any metals at all, we make our opinion based on the truth—-her performance and her father and her personality. but look at urslves, u make your fu*king gossip on He kexin’s face, it is fair for her and for us? I really don’t think so.
right now, Jamaica is much better than USA in running race. but i think after the olympic games, usa r going to “buy such” their athletes for next olympic games.
I’m guessing the IOC will find “inclusive evidence” and just drop it. Unless they can track down some sort of birth records for He Kexin, people can say that the online records were record-keeping mistakes, and, the age tests aren’t that conclusive, there’s a margin of error. If He Kexin is really 14, how awful of the Chinese government and Gymnastics program to use her to cheat.
What did we expect. It is China. The best predictor of behavior is past behavior. Human rights violations, totalitarian government, censorship, etc. It is not like this is a surprise. The people in China are wonderful but the government is strictly murderous.
China’s messed up, but Chelsea, Elsie, and Rita make fair comment. Having been trhough Asia, I’d agree that Asian pretty much always look younger than their years, ESPECIALLY the girls, teen, and women in their early twenties. I do think the gymnasts do look young for 16, but I wouldn’t necessarily say categorically they’re NOT. On the other hand, I wouldn’t put it past the Chinese to lie about this – based on their recent past, as previous commenter says: shooting teenage monks (in the back no less) in the mountains in 2006, preventing demonstrations and free speech, shameless selling of reverse-engineered products (which our firm encountered on business trips to China), shameless selling of pure junk, claiming to have western style factories, but in fact preventing women employees from having children or preventing any employee rights, having poor quality control, if at all, and on and on. Sure, let’s be fair about this age thing, but don’t try to tell me that the Chinese don’t ever lie. Geez. It’s a national past-time. That China got the Olympics to begin with….
meant to add: Asian cultures are a lot about saving face. Even if it means lying and being perfectly obvious about the lying. If it means saving face, anything goes. Generalizing, but still…Chinese will not admit to forging the age of these girls, if that’s what they’ve done, because it’ll mean losing face, even if it means they’ve lost face by forging in the first place! If a tree falls in the forest, but no one hears it/no one is in the forest, does it make a sound? Or some such silly question. So if no one finds out, then it’s not bad. I don’t know…there’s some twisted logic for it somewhere. I’m just glad I don’t have to live there.
hi rita,
i’ve not been lucky enough to go to china but my parents have been on several occasions. it is an amazing country and the people i have met from there have been wonderful if the only potential evidence was the girls’ youthful appearance, then i would have to agree with your post.
however, two separate entities have found written documentation that may show that the girls are underage. other athletes from other countries who were talented but underage were not allowed to compete because their governments and national olympic committees followed the rules. it would be grossly unfair to allow one country to break the rules and expect all of the other countries to follow them.
the ioc should investigate. if conclusive evidence isn’t presented, and i agree with “s” that it probably will not be, then the matter should be dropped. however, if credible evidence is presented, then the girls’ medals should be taken away. (which, if that is the case, it is a very sad situation because, imho, given how the u.s. gymnasts performed in the all around competition, china probably could have put any number of their appropriately aged atheletes in and won.)
however, without an investigation this issue will never be able to be put to rest and the girls’ achievements will always be questioned. that’s not fair to them either.
with regard to the u.s. track and field performance we are getting our asses kicked by jamaica. good for them! they are clearly better than the team we have put together. i will say that a lot of these international competitors attend university in the u.s. which is a great irony. we have clearly trained people to beat us. ha ha.
The Chinese Government is known for being corrupt. This is not a surprise. It would be a shame if this is ignored because they are the hosts. It’s just as bad as athletics on steroids.
Go chelse!
and the american government is not corrupt or has had some human rights abuse issues? But im sure if they ever host the olympics again, no other countries will bitch as much the americans about losing.
P.s i just love how nbc america is changing the way they calculate the medal tally so america is still on top. go team usa!
As usual, China is bending the rules that should count for everybody at the olympics. If these girls have won fairly, good for them. But if they have cheated on their ages, how miserably played.
Really sad the whole thing.
typical fucking Americans!!!
I feel like there has been so much heavy speculation on this subject that it deserves some official attention. Whether or not the IOC finds the proof that a lot of us would like them to find, these young girls did a fantastic job.
I heard if first here and I agree with the Beet. Play fair or don’t play at all.
playing by the rules also means phelps should stop doping …
If ANY corroborating information is found, it should be taken as a sign that there was foul play.
I mean, the parents??? How come nothing has been shown about the ages of the parents, hospital records of the births, hospital bills.
These women / girls have traveled to other countries for other meets and used passports then as well. These other meets do NOT have the age restriction that the Olympics has. How have the passports not been checked and verified that they are the original ones with stamps dated at the proper dates for the other meets???
4 things should be done ASAP before the next official contest…
1) The age restriction removed, or lowered to 12. Hell if you are good enough to compete, you should be able to compete. That is what is behind all the practices, the training, the preliminaries prior to the Olympics and the Olympics is all about. The BEST athletes, not the best athletes over a certain age.
2) I think that duplicate medals for the people who would have won a medal if any corroborated information for a gymnast is found to be possibly fake. That way the people who might have received a medal or a better medal will get one, AND the Chinese gymnasts keep theirs. This would ONLY be done for the questionable girls.
3) Go back to ties. Give 2 medals if necessary. Many other sports do it. And I personally would like to see commercials with 2 great athletes.
4) Fix the scoring and the people judging, remove the BS that you see now, I want my 10’s back!!!! And there should be qualified people who can judge a gymnast… I still don’t see how the Chinese girls vault where she falls to her knees and puts a hand down is better than Nastias’ little hop!
Hell even if they don’t fix anything, I will still watch.
Phelps doping…
He who takes EXTRA checks and has never been accused or found to have anything illegal in his system?
Hmmm, I think the sarcasm smilie was dropped off your reply…
Or your the one on dope!
:)
Phelps doping…
He who takes EXTRA checks and has never been accused or found to have anything illegal in his system?
Hmmm, I think the sarcasm smilie was dropped off your reply…
Or you are the one on dope!
:)
Doh, don’t back up to fix a spelling / grammar error…
I don’t understand why anyone cares anymore about the Olympics. The Olympics went to shit the very day they allowed professional athletes to compete in what is to be a forum for amateurs.
Its funny peoples comments about white people not realizing that asians look younger. I for one was not comparing them to anyone but thier own. The two divers for China were real 15 and 16 year old chinese girls and they looked much older than the underaged gymnasts. You look at a real 15 year old chinses girl in comparison and it’s still quite obvious these gymnasts are underage.
I used to work with kids and I had several chinese and other asian girls and there is still a huge difference between pre and post pubescent girls…. even the chinese.
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