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China's 2008 Olympic Gymnasts Get an All Clear
October 01, 2008 12:11 PM
By BETH LOYD, ABC News Producer, Beijing
The Chinese Gymnastics Federation and the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee are breathing a guarded sigh of relief. The darlings of the 2008 Beijing Olympics -- its women’s gymnastics team -- have been cleared of charges that some of them were too young to compete in the Beijing Games. This ensures that the gold medals they won on their home turf will not be taken away, which would have forever scarred the legacy of the competitors and China’s Olympics.
“We are absolutely satisfied that the age of the Chinese team that competed in Beijing was correct,” Andre Gueisbuhler, the secretary general of the FIG, told ABC News.
But questions over two of China’s 2000 Sydney gymnasts remain. The International Gymnastics Federation said that they “do not consider the explanations and evidence provided to date in regards to these athletes as satisfactory.”
The two athletes being scrutinized are Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun. China won the team bronze in Sydney and Yang Yun won the individual bronze on the uneven bars. The FIG says that Dong Fangxiao applied for her credential for the Beijing Olympics with documents suggesting she was 14 years old in 2000, and therefore too young to compete, according to the AP. And Yang Yun was taped and broadcast across China in June 2007 saying she was 14 during the Sydney Olympics.
Yang Yun told The Associated Press last week that she simply misspoke during the interview, but the FIG is not convinced.
(NOTE: Yang Yun is engaged to the star of the 2008 Chinese male gymnastics team Yang Wei -- but they were not allowed to apply for their marriage certificate until after Yang Wei finished his 2008 competitions. There are strict rules for Chinese Olympic athletes, including that they can’t marry while they are still in competition for medals.)
The Chinese government, for the four 2008 athletes who have been cleared, provided passports, ID cards and family registers showing they are 16 years old or would turn 16 this year. This was enough for the FIG and the International Olympic Committee, despite many online records and state-media reports that showed several of the gymnasts were too young. Chinese gymnastics officials and state media say these records were typos.
It is unclear which particular documents are under question in the case of the two 2000 gymnasts.
Critics say, in a country like China, where documents can be forged and transparency is not necessarily its forte, it can be almost impossible to tell the real from the fake.
Li Jie, a Chinese freelance journalist in Beijing, said this raises a red flag. “This case shows the Chinese government has a crisis of confidence. We should learn from it. The Chinese government should make information more public and transparent,” she told ABC News.
ABC News sports analyst Christine Brennan said that the FIG’s decision was "expected, but unfortunate. Reporters and others found quite a bit of evidence that the Chinese were cheating by using under-age gymnasts. I'm not sure how the IOC and FIG didn't find the same evidence, although their excuse might be that some of it seemed to be disappearing before their eyes from the internet. That sounds like something right out of a spy flick and should have raised extra suspicions.”
She added, "Even with this decision, the age controversy will forever taint China's gymnastics performance at the 2008 Olympics, and it should."
But the Chinese are standing their ground. The gymnastics federation here and the fans en masse agree, and not surprisingly so, that their athletes are old enough.
It was more than 10 years ago when the IOC raised its participation age for gymnasts to 16. But many think age shouldn’t matter.
Sun Jianxia, a student at Beijing University, told ABC News, “I think athletes’ age is not the most important thing. We should focus more on their scores and their achievements. These gymnasts already did a great job at their age. We should not put more pressure on them.”
But rules are rules. These, in particular, were put into place so as not to put young children under the duress of the strict training regimens that these athletes must endure. And all countries are supposed to follow the rules. Experts say that younger gymnasts are more agile, more flexible and less fearless, which can give them an advantage.
If it turns out that the 2000 Sydney Olympic athletes were indeed underage and provided fake documents to the FIG and the IOC, then what next? The FIG says it will take some time for them to complete their investigation.
If they conclude that the gymnasts were underage, they would most likely be stripped of their medals, if IOC precedent is taken into account. And the larger question of document forging will be raised once again. But in the meantime, the Chinese will no doubt rejoice in the fact that their 2008 Olympic women’s gymnastics team emerged both victorious and unscathed.
October 1, 2008 in Beth Loyd | Permalink | User Comments (18)
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Maybe their meat products are not laced with enough growth hormones like ours.
Posted by: Ben Straub | Oct 1, 2008 12:48:26 PM
Wow, there's a surprise. I don't know why anyone expected any different outcome. No way in creation they were going to find China guilty of anything on this matter. It was just a coincidence that all of the top gymnasts in China happened to be 15 or 16 for the first Olympics...in China! I bet all of the top gymnasts in China are 16, 12, 8 and 4...ensuring they can compete in the Olympics every four years. You won't find any who miss it by a year because by the time they were truly old enough four years later, they'd be burned out and broken down.
Posted by: Zinglesoff | Oct 1, 2008 12:58:32 PM
When will they have a test to determine age? I think that's one test that they'll never be able to come up with. They seem to have one for everything else.
Posted by: TK | Oct 1, 2008 1:03:49 PM
Ben , at least we in the usa have some idea what is in our food. in china the labeling means zip and there is no quality control to speak of.
also, here in the usa there is actually a growing consumer market for organic foods/meat (much of it grown/packaged/sold under the fdas' regulation,ie; fairly safe probably)
in china they are having the same growing pains the usa had 150 years ago before we invented the food and health regulations that are now almost ubiquitous around the world.
go eat in china all you want,just dont complain about the tumors/cancers you get because of the protein enhancers (like melamine) the unregulated profit grubbing food manufacturers use ,usually with at least tacit or a wink and a nod government approval (along with a few yen under the table as well)
and Ben consider this....there is no need to complain in china about anything...nothing happens and you just get shot and tossed in a river!
Posted by: bah | Oct 1, 2008 1:11:06 PM
the west ,in particular the usa, should not do business with china until they clean up their dictatorial ways.
money from china has a bad smell to it.
same for russia. jfk didnt like it and neither do i.
making deals with the devil never works out in the end...
Posted by: bah | Oct 1, 2008 1:25:17 PM
"This ensures that the gold medals they won...will not be taken away, which would have forever scarred the legacy of the competitors and China’s Olympics." So instead the IOC prefers forever scarring the Olympics itself: anybody can see the hijinks the Chinese went through to pull this stunt, and that the IOC is simply bowing to the host as deeply as they can: most disgusting.
Posted by: JoeOvercoat | Oct 1, 2008 1:26:53 PM
bah - I totally agree.
Posted by: Ben Straub | Oct 1, 2008 1:41:50 PM
LOL....there was a crazy woman author who vowed to have her family live without Chinese made products for a year....it was IMPOSSIBLE. Give it up, Americans NEED China, like it or not. Did you see the opening ceremonies? We may not like the politics, but this is a country run on incredible efficiency and clockwork precision. If Americans ran ourselves like that, do you think we would be in the economic mess we are now?
Posted by: WorldView | Oct 1, 2008 2:15:06 PM
the FIG sold out to China on this. Why is the whole planet selling out to China? Are we to believe these baby faced little girls are 16 yrs old? Surely the FIG is corruptable to Chinese extortion.
Posted by: Bob | Oct 1, 2008 3:18:58 PM
I doubt about the critics' motivation!
Posted by: Mike | Oct 1, 2008 4:11:31 PM
Of course the Chinese government would say they were old enough. They issue the passports, the birth certificates, and can wipe out any information that contradicts them. You can bet that any future Chinese gymnast is already 2 years older today than they were yesterday. This way, in 2012, there won't be any doubt that they are "16".
Posted by: Debbie | Oct 1, 2008 4:45:56 PM
WorldView, the Opening Ceremonies were spectacular, but a dictatorship can quite naturally, and merely by fiat, muster the tens of thousands of people necessary to create such a spectacle and simply order them to participate, to rehearse day in and day out for years, like it or not. It can also order the dedication of vast governmental financial resources to the project. When you consider that simple reality, the Opening Ceremonies must be regarded as somewhat less impressive than they seemed.
Posted by: Eleonora27 | Oct 1, 2008 6:03:30 PM
Of course they are cleared. The IOC is bought and paid for. And it would simply be cruel to take away medals from little children. They might throw a tantrum.
Posted by: pop | Oct 1, 2008 6:57:31 PM
The Chinese never respected the age rule. A May 2008 chinese news column
both states He's age as 14 and talks
about her olympic hopes.
The only way to presearve any dignity
in this issue is to get the resignation
of Andre Gueisbular with a full explanation as to his actions and motivation.
Come on sports writers and sports fans
Let's get this done. It's not enough
just to leave this "cloud" over those
medals.
of
Posted by: john lyon | Oct 1, 2008 10:06:48 PM
Don't feel bad America. You guys still get the gold medal for being the best Olympic cheaters! You remember when over 100 of your athletes tested positive for banned substances in 1988, but your Olympic committee covered it up and let them compete anyway? Those guys ending up winning 19 medals and they all got to keep them. That was awesome! And remember that spectacular opening ceremony in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics? You know, the one where your country bribed IOC members so that the Olympics could be held there. My eyes just tear up remembering the beauty of that moment. Be proud America! Be proud that you can be such hypocritical bastards and not even realize it.
Posted by: Hans | Oct 1, 2008 10:29:15 PM
But, but..the internet SAID they were underage!
Posted by: Turd Ferguson | Oct 1, 2008 10:49:43 PM
They should develop tests conducted by an independant comitee on the athletes biological age. Any government can conspire to cheat, and its easily done. They would just make up false information and process that information the same way they process the real info. Any government who wants to conspire to cheat can just make a fake passport. Since China has removed all other evidence and not allowed for any more evidence to be examined other than their own testimony, the conclusion is not surprising. Come on, no government tells the whole truth. Our own government and politicians do that frequently.
Posted by: Andrew | Oct 2, 2008 12:04:58 AM
One source of this issue is that the Chinese athletes look so young;
But anyone who has spent time in Hong Kong or South China especially has seen small-boned slim people of indeterminate age.
Posted by: woody | Oct 4, 2008 11:30:05 PM
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