China denies falsifying age of gymnasts
Reuters reports that China has denied that it falsified the ages of two of its athletes so they could compete in the Beijing Olympics. An New York Times article claimed that He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan were not yet 16 years old - the minimum age set by International Gymnastics Federation (FIGS) to compete at major championships and the Olympic games.
Online records listing Chinese gymnasts and their ages that were posted on official Web sites in China, along with ages given in the official Chinese news media, however, seem to contradict the passport information, indicating that He and Jiang may be as young as 14 — two years below the Olympic limit.
Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic all-around gymnastics champion at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, recently watched a competition video of He and other Chinese gymnasts on the uneven bars.
“The girls are so little, so young,” Retton said. Speaking of He, Retton rolled her eyes and laughed, saying, “They said she was 16, but I don’t know.”
Our Olympic squads were recently named and we registered their ages according to their identity cards or other legal certifications presented by their regional gymnastics associations, which show they all are over the minimum age for the Olympics,” Chinese team manager Zhang Peiwen told state news agency Xinhua.
’ts not really the point of who is best, it’s about who is following the rules. It’s called cheating no matter how pretty it’s packaged. Gymnasts may have stunted height or delayed puberty, but there are other indicators that these girls are less than 16 like the ratio of their iris’s to eye size, and the shape and ratio of their cranium and facial bone development and ears. Those are not effected by exercise and neither are teeth. The one Chinese girl has missing teeth just like a 7 year old that I know. There is no other explanation than that they are cheating, lying and falsifying documents. But it’s not surprising. If North Korea was punished for doing it, so should China. I hope they get caught. They are doing nothing more than showing how greedy they are for medals at any cost.
is nice to hear some rumors from sore losers: why?
did the Chinese follwing the rules? yup.
eye size? i wonder how we laugh about the Chinese’s small eyes!
cranium? so they must be white girls!
missing teeth? are u talking about me?
North Korea was punished for doing it, so should China.
msot real evidences show that China didn’t cheat. on other hand, should some medias deserve the punishments. oh, wait a second, they said the some Chinese gymnast are Probably, Maybe, Perhaps underage.
anyway, a so called official Chinese news media had admited, their informations about the age of that Chinese gymnast is incorrect.
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