<p>I don’t think we are presuming that China is guilty, their government news agency listed the correct age of the athlete, which they changed.</p>
<p>I think there should be an investigation as to why the government news agency can have two different ages for the girl.</p>
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<p>Rather, Western people often seem to be ignorant of the development of Chinese anatomy …</p>
<p>oh please galoisien. It isn’t so much the girls’ anatomy as the government’s documents that now raise questions.</p>
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<p>Non sequitur, given the quote you clipped from my post. Doping is not the subject of this thread (but since it’s been brought up, I’ll ask who has heard suspicions implicating the US government in any doping of athletes in these Olympics, for I certainly haven’t). That the Chinese government provided passports – state documents – which attest as to the age of the Chinese female gymnasts and may contain false information is quite a different matter than the misbehavior of any individual athlete.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of natural variability in people’s sizes. But it seems relevant to me that Yang Yun, a Chinese woman gymnast who competed in Sydney and won 2 bronze medals, was listed as 16 when she competed, but later said that she had been 14. Also, apparently the ages of 3 of the gymnasts on the Chinese women’s team, as listed when they competed internationally earlier, would not make them 16 in 2008. Were the ages given earlier erroneous? One typographical error would not be too unbelievable. Three errors, all in the same direction, seem likely to have some systematic source–possibly some sort of honest error, but I’m doubtful about that.</p>
<p>How many pages of discussion did you guys have for Floyd Landis? Were you guys as enthusiastic about that?</p>
<p>I just answered my own question: ONE page!!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/218677-floyd-landis-tests-positive-testoterone.html?highlight=Floyd+Landis[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/218677-floyd-landis-tests-positive-testoterone.html?highlight=Floyd+Landis</a></p>
<p>Looks like jmilton90 was right (post #113): “We’re fast to critique others (and stretch the discussion as long as possible as if it’s entertaining) but are not as fast to critique ourselves”</p>
<p>Which members of the US government were complicit in Landis’ doping? Don’t you get it? It’s the difference between a totalitarian government which HAS to win to show that their ideas are superior, and the actions of individuals who are willing to cheat to win. The two are not the same thing. If nothing else, the first is a much more interesting story.</p>
<p>For example, if a random American took a gun to Iraq and started shooting it would be a small story. If the 3rd Infantry Division did this, it would be a much bigger story. Pretty much the same thing.</p>
<p>The underage story is that many times more interesting than Landis doping. That’s interesting. I wonder why the French aren’t as interested as the Americans on this.</p>
<p>Don’t be so sure of that. It is making headlines on all the news channels whether French, Russian, English. I can’t watch U.S. tv except CNNi and NBC news via podcast. By the way, all of these countries have channels that broadcast in English to promote their point of view worldwide. And now they are all free to air. More interesting: I have CCTV.</p>
<p>I am not sure it is accurate to say Americans are unaware of Asian physical development, ever lived in Orange County, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, plenty of Asians from all nations to see.</p>
<p>somemom, only addressing to the comment of your post. Domestic Asians in the US are indeed bulkier than native Asians from their homelands. American fastfoods maybe? :-)</p>
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<p>… lol… the shortsightedness of this type of post… I don’t even know if there is a need to respond.</p>
<p>Stillgreen has it very right, it is mostly diet, but it is also Asian cultures and activities which lend to their leaness. While our 9 year old kids are eating bacon/eggs/toast/sugary cereal for breakfast and getting into our soccer mom vans every morning, our young Chinese friends are drinking tea, eating radish and rice and then biking 20 miles to the local school to play kick ball.</p>
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<p>Now, really, to us, who HAS to win, the USA or China? Think about it brother, it might be a revelation. We are much more forcible with our ideals on the world than China is.</p>
<p>overseas,</p>
<p>Of course it has been reported in newspapers in other countries. Just because it’s been reported doesn’t mean the public there care that much. You don’t keep talking about every single little thing on a newspaper on any given day, do you? Look at the articles in post #55, the French readers put down no more than 2 pages of comments for any of those articles.</p>
<p>[BBC</a> SPORT | Olympics 2008 blog](<a href=“http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics/2008/08/tweddles_olympic_dream_ended_b.html]BBC”>BBC SPORT | Olympics blog blog) gets only 2 comments. Interestingly, one of them said “it is all US sour grape connumdrum”</p>
<p>It will continue to make headlines when American media keeps pushing it and making it a huge deal (amen to the post above on who “HAS to win” now). The world could care less about the petty fight over underage gymnasts! They did care more about secret prisons holding terror suspects without trial in the US, though. LOL! Now, its Russian-Georgia conflict that dominates the headlines in other countries. Not this!</p>
<p>11 out of a total of 14 members of the Greek Olympic weightlifting team have tested positive for banned substances. Did you care? It’s been reported but I bet most Americans don’t even know about that!</p>
<p>I care about it because of the cheating angle. It is a big deal when cheating at anything causes those who have not cheated to lose because of cheaters. People that compete in the Olympics or at academic things or whatever care a great deal about winning. The world is full of cheaters and I like it when they get caught. Maybe I am weird.</p>
<p>We internationals have known for a long time that the US IOC have been hiding positive test results of their athletes for a long time. How do we know? Because the IOC said so. Why American media did not pick up on the story is anyone’s guess. Seems like a lot of American still are in the dark on this one.</p>
<p>One method that was used was to offer US athletes a “trial” run at their facilities to “accustomized” them to the testing procedure. Since it is not an official test, the results, well, don’t count. Tell me which athlete is foolish enough not to take advantage of it?</p>
<p>I remember during one Pan Am games American weight lifters were “failing” their lifts like crazy. Years later I learned why. Apparently one American lifter passed the trial run but failed the official one at the games. From what I learned some of the “juice” are absorbed by fatty tissues and leak at a later date, creating the first situation I know where an athlete passed an earlier test but failed a later one. The rest of the US lifters got the message and started to purposely failing all three lifts. This disqualified them from competition but testing was avoided. (I remember the Soviet team was also “bombing out” badly during one Olympic games, but I am not sure if it was for the same reason).</p>
<p>One poster mentioned sore losers. The first one that comes to mind is the US ice hockey team that trash their accommodation after losing the gold medal match, and then did not have the class to own up to it. </p>
<p>We internationals have always known that when it comes to sports, just like in other spheres of life, that there is one rule for the US and another one for the rest of us.</p>
<p>I have noticed that the issue has been reported in other countries, Britain in particular since one of their gymnasts just missed out on a medal (and she is 23 - this was her last chance). I don’t think it is sore losers as others have mentioned as much as wanting a level paying field - perhaps other countries had quality athletes that they did not send since they were not yet of age and they were following the rules…either enforce the rules or don’t have them at all…</p>
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Always known? As in before Bush? So, you, as an international are saying that you’re not wild about America (Americans?) and it’s not because of Bush? So I guess you won’t be our biggest fan after Bush leaves office. Hmmm.</p>
<p>Americans attack Americans who are doping. Check out the coverage of Barry Bonds for example. We’d prefer to learn that somebody like Floyd Landis wasn’t doping, but if he was, he deserves to have his title stripped, and few Americans will defend him. Lots of us are suspicious of Lance Armstrong, for that matter. To put this another way, I think many Americans think that cheating damages our national honor more than losing does–it doesn’t seem to me that China and its defenders feel the same way.</p>
<p>Agree with Hunt. To answer Sam Lee’s second question in #126 (speaking only for myself, with 4 posts on this thread vs. zero on the Floyd Landis thread): I didn’t watch the Tour de France, didn’t read articles about it, and didn’t post about it; but I do care about doping, and I’m glad that the techniques used by the analytical chemists to detect doping are becoming increasingly sophisticated. I’m also quite happy to hear about the “gotcha!” effect of the delayed positives, reported by Canuckguy in #136–the cleaner the competition, the better.</p>
<p>I did watch both men’s and women’s gymnastics for quite a few hours, watched the team-selection competition before hand, and read about both. (Perhaps this relative level of interest in cycling vs. gymnastics also holds for others in the CC sample, which is not exactly a representative sample of US opinion.)</p>