<p>Interesting stuff, including Canuckguy’s speculations and understandings, but still no excuse for cheating.</p>
<p>This Canadian, like this CBC
documentary, abhors cheating and hypocrisy, be it Chinese or American.</p>
<p>[CBC</a> Sports Online: Drugs and Sport: Top 10 Doping Scandals](<a href=“http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/drugs/stories/top10.html]CBC”>http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/drugs/stories/top10.html)</p>
<p>I thought my position is clear from my postings.</p>
<p>Letting a 10-year-old who MEETS THE PHYSICAL STANDARDS for competing at the Olympic level PLAY BASED ON MERIT is quite different from an athlete who dopes. </p>
<p>What is with this continued comparison between a CAPABLE ATHLETE WHO DESERVES TO PLAY and an ATHLETE WHO TOOK STEROIDS.</p>
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<p>This comparison has been brought up (and rehashed numerous times) by those who think there is no reason to have (or perhaps just don’t want) an investigation into the ages of the Chinese gymnasts. </p>
<p>Regardless of whether YOU think an underaged athlete “deserves to play,” the fact is that there are rules prohibiting an underaged athlete from playing, and breaking those rules, even with the complicity of a national government, should be investigated.</p>
<p>You can say that both American athletes and Chinese athletes cheat and it’s a fair. But there is a difference here. You have the freedom to say it on American soil. But if you say it in China you will go to jail. Asian americans know this for sure.</p>
<p>SI has an excellent article on bonuses in the Chinese sports machine.</p>
<p>[Faster</a>, Stronger, Richer - S.L. Price - SI.com](<a href=“http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/sl_price/08/26/china/index.html?eref=T1]Faster”>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/sl_price/08/26/china/index.html?eref=T1)</p>
<p>It has a bit more information on Chen Xiexia, the weight lifter I wrote about in an earlier post. When I saw that her father could not speak Mandarin on national TV, I knew she was from a hole somewhere. Earning 570 dollars a year , however, was shocking. Glad to see that she can now provide for them.</p>
<p>In a system this competitive, I always suspect that friendship among teammates to be rare. It is no secret that Guo Jingjing and Fu Mingxia were not the best of friends. Since there is a strong chance that Guo will be marrying into the powerful Fok family in Hong Kong, the two great diving champions may get to see each other more than they care for.</p>
<p>The case of Ge Fei and Gu Jun is even more interesting. Known to the Chinese as the “number one pair under heaven”, these two women grew up in proximity to each other, called up to the provincial team and later, the national team around the same time. Together, they made up the greatest doubles pair in badminton history (for a span of 7-8 years, they suffered only 1 loss that I know of, to their teammates), yet they barely talk to each other off the court, let alone doing things together.</p>
<p>There are exceptions, thanks goodness. The two that played in the table tennis final in Beijing are very close. Zhang Yining was called up to the National team at age 14 and was assigned to the same room as Wang Nan, the 19 yr old World Champion. Wang taught her charge how to do housework, deal with pressure of competition etc., and periodically took her out for treats.</p>
<p>Once they faced each other in a major tournament and Zhang, out of nervousness, was beaten badly by her teammate. Knowing that she will be getting a lecture from her coach, Zhang was crying on the podium. Wang, with a smile, took her gold medal and hanged it around Zhang’s neck. Both broke out laughing…so sweet.</p>
<p>On an Olympic variety show that was broadcasted daily during the Games, they had all three medalists on stage. The host, knowing that Wang (now 30) is retiring, symbolically handed her a baton that she passed to Zhang (25) the Olympic Champion, who in turned tried to pass it on to Guo Yue (20) the bronze medalist. Wisely, Guo pushed it back. </p>
<p>Nice to see that these Chinese athletes are not robots, but human beings like the rest of us.</p>
<p>
I would not think the mother kept the secret. There is something contradictory here.</p>
<p>I can’t believe the presumptuous of the CC-privileged that goes on in this thread. How many people on this forum have a household income of more than $100,000 / year? </p>
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<p>Because that’s clearly so totalitarian, amirite??? </p>
<p>Yeah damn right. I mean, Michael Phelps’ story must be clearly more exceptional, even when he clearly grew up in a sufficiently-privileged family who could afford to fly to Beijing.</p>
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<p>Who woulda thunk???</p>
<p>On the other hand, the extra-curricular mill in America does seem somewhat robotic.</p>
<p>Take the child of any sufficiently-rich parents, sign him or her up for enough piano lessons, sports seasons and all sorts of activities, and it’s not surprising that there’s a good probability of this member of the rich kid demographic to turn out to be a star in his or her sport.</p>
<p>And now you want to put down actual non-privileged people who had way less chances than you Americans had as “robotic” – people who struggled their way to the top while most American athletes usually come from rich families??? Oh please. Props to Michael Phelps, but I find the athletes who come from low-income backgrounds to be the most inspiring. To think of calling them cogs in the machine!</p>
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<p>I don’t.</p>
<p>galoisien, who paid for the Phelps’ family tickets? And where did you get this information?</p>
<p>I can say that if my kid were going to be in the Olympics – which is very unlikely, given that he is not into any sport at all – I’d for darn sure be there, whatever the cost, and I’d borrow the money to do it. I don’t borrow for many things, but a once-in-a-lifetime (or in Phelps’s case, a few-in-a-lifetime) opportunity is one of them.</p>
<p>It’s kind of amazing to me the lengths to which some are going to try to defend cheating. You think rules shouldn’t be followed, hmm?</p>
<p>It’s not defending cheating, at its worst its civil disobedience against a silly rule. The older folk (and the Western world) just don’t want to find themselves competing against those who are not only more capable, but more fiercely determined.</p>
<p>China and Chinese althletes certainly have enough money to buy air tickets for the parents to watch the games. But the Chinese Communist Party did not want to do that. They did not want to show the world the poor peasants with burnt skins and bad dentures hugging the gold medalists. They only want to show healthy people with beautiful look. Remember the two singers?</p>
<p>Buying air tickets is one thing. But farmers ain’t got no vacation leave. Who wants to leave their fields untended and let the crops wither unwatered just so they can watch the Olympic games?</p>
<p>One more reason that the parents should stay away from Bejiing: being interviewed about their children by the press.</p>
<p>galoisien, the “Western world” wrote the script on young gymnasts. I realize you are too young – as an “older folk,” I can say that 
– to remember the 1976 Olympics. See here: [Nadia</a> Comăneci - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Nadia Comăneci - Wikipedia”>Nadia Comăneci - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>cool weather–the missing Chinese fans have been on my mind from the start. Even for the most popular sports–there were huge swathes of empty seats.</p>
<p>Knowing that the party had the means to fill the seats, I had to assume they simply couldn’t trust the majority of their citizens–even trust them to look presentable for a world-wide television audience.</p>
<p>Very worrying because I bought the myth (?) that there is a huge rise of Chinese middle class.</p>
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<p>yarr, cuz God forbid that the all the spectators don’t at least have one Abercrombie & Fitch item in their wardrobes.</p>
<p>Laugh but go back and look at the huge number of empty seats at every event except the opening and closing. Even the Gymnastic Final had big swathes of empty seats.</p>
<p>Every Chinese national was fizzing with pride–they would have been thrilled to be in those seats.</p>
<p>For a country with 1b citizens, the inability to produce 500K “conformist” spectators for two weeks of Olympic games, less than 1/20th of 1% of that population, is worrying.</p>
<p>Shame on the Western media for dropping the issue too.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand your point, but there was nothing “western” about Romania in 1976.</p>
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<p>Sarcasm does not work well here. I should have added :rolleyes:</p>
<p>As far as the freedom to speak out goes, don’t take it too seriously. If you are standing with the majority, it is easy to do. If you happen to hold an unpopular position, you better keep it to yourself. The American military police, who got “run out of town” for exposing tortures in the Iraqi prison even though he was only doing his job, should be an example to us all. </p>
<p>Self-censureship by the press is disturbing for some but expected here. Which paper had the nerve to challenge the President’s WMD, or question the Fed’s fabrication of economic numbers? As citizens, what we know is what we are told.</p>
<p>On a different note, I see the Chinese Olympians are in Hong Kong for a “visit”. This is purely a political move to buy the hearts and minds of the locals. Every gold medalist is there, imagine that.</p>
<p>Here you have Cantonese-speaking Ma Lin, Olympic and 3(or 4) times World Cup Champion, showing a local boy how to play table tennis.</p>
<p><a href=“http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/p/2008-08-30/15243911969.shtml[/url]”>http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/p/2008-08-30/15243911969.shtml</a></p>
<p>If you are still not convinced, try this picture:</p>
<p><a href=“http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/p/2008-08-30/16063912006.shtml[/url]”>http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/p/2008-08-30/16063912006.shtml</a></p>
<p>Chen Yibing, gold medalist on the rings, demonstrating to the Hong Kong audience with his top off. Can not miss the reaction of the females fans in the background. LOL</p>
<p>Must be getting cynical in my old age.</p>
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<p>How did you know about this? By China newspapers?</p>
<p>I knew many high rank officers in the Bush admin disagreed and left via US TVs, newspapers. The dissidents published a lot of books too. They would have been in jail if they were in China. And I criticize the administration and they do nothing to me. US Republicans freely criticized Bill Clinton. Obama, Clinton and the US democrats freely criticize the Bush administration. Can you criticize the China Communist Party in Beijing or Hong Kong?</p>
<p>By the way, the Iraq war was set up by China. Make no mistake about it.</p>
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</p>
<p>[China</a> Is a Threat to America](<a href=“http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/14/133903.shtml]China”>http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/14/133903.shtml)</p>