<p>Reported by Time magazine:</p>
<p>“Yang Yun, a Chinese gymnast who was listed as 16 when she won double bronzes at Sydney, later went on Chinese television and said she had been 14 when she competed.”</p>
<p>Why did she get to keep her medal? Marion Jones had to give up hers. If an athlete is not caught doping but later admits it on TV, does he keep his medal? Is being age ineligible just not such a big deal?</p>
<p>The I.O.C. made a deal with the devil when it awarded the Olympic games to China. Then again, all the I.O.C. cares about is corporate sponsorship. If this year’s event were held either in western Europe or the U.S.A., the ‘under-age’ story would have bee a major scandal.</p>
<p>Nastia ties but gets second because of the tie breaker rule. Rules are rules.
Poor Anna Pavlova gets a 0 on her second vault because she ran on the red light. Rules are rules.
Three of the Chinese gymnasts are 14. ???
My daughters are having a hard time with this.</p>
<p>ITA. If you don’t like the rule, change it.</p>
<p>And interestingly, I heard Nadia on the Today show this morning and she talked about how when she got her gold she was 14. Wonder when that rule changed …</p>
<p>If memory serves me, her win at age 14 was one of the reasons the rule was changed. People were appalled that “little girls” were expected to train so hard and experience so much pressure, so they changed the rule. Of course, that does nothing to make the training or pressure go away - they just compete for a longer amount of time.</p>
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<p>Not all that long ago. There was a 14 year-old (Dominique Moceanu) on the US team in 1996.</p>
<p>According to Wikipedia (sorry) the age rule was changed in 1997.</p>
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<p>I don’t know the details, but I would guess it is because “age” is a defined term for the rules. In other words, if a competitor holds a passport or birth certificate that verifies his/her age, then they are within the rules. No doubt the Chinese gov’t simply handed her the appropriately dated passport.</p>
<p>Since it’s governments that keep records such as birth certificates, and issue passports, I’m not sure how the IOC could challenge an athlete’s age. Even though some of these gymnasts competed last year as 13 & 14 year olds, if the Chinese gov’t is willing to issue legal documents stating that they are actually 16, how is the IOC supposed to counter that? Challenge the legality of the documents? They’re legal because the Chinese gov’t says they are.</p>
<p>It’s a shame, and a lesson in ethics and morals. In the court of world opinion, these girls are not 16. But legally… I think the IOC’s hands are tied.</p>
<p>Kind of interesting that Bela is throwing such a fit about the Chinese ages. Back when he coached Nadia, I remember him saying something like, “Well, if she can do the tricks now at her young age, why should I hold her back?” I love Bela, but he was one of the ones coaching tiny little girls to do extremely difficult tricks back in the day…</p>
<p>Having grown up watching Olga & Nadia and the communist regime in gymnasts (figure skating, too) and their intense obsession with being the best, I recall my mom being frustrated with communist bloc unfair judging. Now, watching the Chinese cheat to field a team (it is easier for a younger girl to excel at gymnastics) to win gold, they look silly and pathetic.</p>
<p>It used to be the big bad communist bloc all doing anything to win (east German women swimmers any one?) and now the Chinese are bizarre in thinking that we are falling for this. The hyper PC IOC may not be confronting it, but the whole world sees through their cheating and need to “look” good no matter the reality. Their system is already so good and finding kids with great potential they don’t need to cheat, they could win tons of medals the right way and really impress us!</p>
<p>China has a few gold medals more, but in the eyes of the world, Chinese are still viewed the same pathetic cheaters as before the Olynpics. The saddest part is that a few amazing chinese gymnasts are caught in this web of deception. </p>
<p>All in all, China loses. They would have been MUCH better off with fewer medals but a much greater appreciation for fairness and ethics.</p>
<p>The question that begs for an answer is what happened to all the promises of cleaning the judge’s house after the scandals at the Winter Olympics? With today’s technology, why can’t the IOC set aside scores that are clearly manipulated?</p>
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<p>Agree with that, xiggi! After the dog food scandal, China’s rep was that they’d just as soon cheat you if it meant a few bucks in their pockets.</p>
<p>Right on, Xiggi!</p>
<p>I am pretty horrified about the Chinese gymnasts, who look a lot closer to 10 than to 14. (They sure as heck don’t look as old as Nadia Comaneci looked when she competed.) On the other hand, the age-limit rule is a big pile of b.s. It clearly isn’t effective to protect any young girls from the rigors of world class training, in China or in the U.S. Shawn Johnson didn’t get to be the Shawn Johnson she is at 16 without engaging in some seriously abusive training at 12, 13, 14, etc. The rule just lets us pretend not to know that, or at least it would if the Chinese didn’t thumb their noses at it.</p>
<p>I do enjoy watching women’s gymnastics two or three times a decade. But any “sport” at which a 12-year-old has an advantage over a 20-year-old really doesn’t deserve that name. (Same deal with camel racing, I guess.)</p>
<p>"China has a few gold medals more, but in the eyes of the world, Chinese are still viewed the same pathetic cheaters as before the Olynpics. The saddest part is that a few amazing chinese gymnasts are caught in this web of deception. </p>
<p>All in all, China loses. They would have been MUCH better off with fewer medals but a much greater appreciation for fairness and ethics."</p>
<p>What if I substitute in the above, “China” and “Chinese” with “US” and “Americans” for the incident of Paul Hamm, who “won” the all-around at Athens, because of a mathematical error. “Fairness and ethics” would suggest that Hamm giving up his gold medal.</p>
<p>"The US has a few gold medals more, but in the eyes of the world, Americans are still viewed the same pathetic cheaters as before the Olympics. The saddest part is that a few amazing American gymnasts are caught in this web of deception. </p>
<p>All in all, the US loses. They would have been MUCH better off with fewer medals but a much greater appreciation for fairness and ethics."</p>
<p>[BBC</a> SPORT | Olympics 2004 | Gymnastics | Hamm to keep Olympic gold medal](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics_2004/gymnastics/3693832.stm]BBC”>BBC SPORT | Olympics 2004 | Gymnastics | Hamm to keep Olympic gold medal)</p>
<p>Sometimes a look in the mirror canbe illuminating.</p>
<p>Underaged, cheating Chinese gymnasts aside, Shawn and Nastia still won nine medals! It’s time to accentuate the positive.</p>
<p>The “Paul Hamm story” is to unfair to him. When they examined the Korean guy’s routine, they discovered that he’d had one extra touch/hold that should have been a deduction, but the judges missed it. So with BOTH the routines had been judged again, the result would have been exactly as it was.</p>
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<p>What are your examples of other cheating by China in sports? China has been cheating and stealing in many other areas such as violating intellectual property laws and stealing military secrets, but I am not sure of widespread cheating in sports.</p>
<p>What I found really interesting is that last night, as the Chinese gymnast who eventually tied Nastia, was about to step out on the mat, NBC displayed her name and her age at the bottom of the screen. The age that was displayed on national TV for the world to see was 15. Huh? So we are all going to ignore the elephant in the room it seems. (Thanks for clarification on the 15 thing missypie…I guess I was supposed to edit, not repost. I’ll leave above as is for ‘learning’ value. ;))</p>
<p>Allowing these girls to compete illegally is nothing less than stealing. It’s theft of opportunity. Female gymnasts are only competitive for a limited window of time and China has stretched the window for their athletes at the expense of every other world class gymnast.</p>
<p>Furthermore, their ages are known to anyone who cares to look at their junior level competition records. Why the US is not making a deal of this is beyond me.</p>
<p>From the Time article:</p>
<p>"Within China’s domestic sports scene there has been age-fixing as well. Young athletes can be designated as younger than they are so they can dominate in age-based competitions, as was the case with Chinese basketball star Wang Zhizhi, whose age was listed in inter-club competitions as two years younger than he actually was.</p>
<p>Earlier this year, a 14-year-old table-tennis prodigy in eastern Shandong province told me quite cheerfully that she competes as an 11-year-old in provincial and regional age-ranked competitions. Her national identity card, she said, had been changed to reflect the false birth-date. “It’s no big deal,” she insisted. “Most of my friends do it, too.” Her coach, who hadn’t been present when I interviewed the girl, denied any age-fixing at the school, although he said he was quite sure it happened at other academies."</p>