I didn’t need a commentator telling me that there was a question of age to realize, as I was watching the female gymnasts compete earlier in the Olympic games, that I was looking at girls who definitely were not sixteen years old. Look, I was a teenager once. I have a teenage daughter. I have kids who have teenage friends. Some of these girls in question are definitely not sixteen…but the problem has been that nobody can prove it. The Chinese have produced the girls’ passports and apparently that is all the IOC needs, because China has such a long history of being completely open and trustworthy:
Just last week, questions were raised about the ages of two of Yang’s teammates. The New York Times reported that online records listed the gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan, as being too young for this Olympics, perhaps as young as 14.
A national registry of gymnasts, which had been blocked online but was viewable through Google cache, listed He’s birthday as Jan. 1, 1994. That date was also listed for her on a registration for an intercity competition in Chengdu, China.
Jiang was born on Oct. 1, 1993 and is not yet 15, according to a listing of junior competitors from the Zhejiang Province sports administration. The list of athletes included national identification card numbers into which birth dates are embedded. Chinese officials have produced passports showing that He and Jiang are 16, making them old enough to compete at the Games.
Well, the IOC may want to take a look at moar web documents recently found that show the age of some of these girls is definitely not sixteen:
Olympic gymnastics title contenders suddenly have one more thing to worry about other than the eight gold medals China claimed at the Tianjin World Cup last week. Her name is He Kexin.
The 14-year-old newcomer to the national team, who was recruited last year, has raised a lot of eyebrows recently after she broke two world records on the uneven bars in as many months. She will be just one more weapon on an already star-studded Chinese Olympic squad.
Yeah, so? Well, this article was posted on May 23, 2008. Yep, this year. Ineligible to compete in Olympic gymnastics. And worse, China has “cleaned up” the article to now read that she is sixteen years old.
Plus, in a translated page (from the original Chinese), an article from November 2007 says she is thirteen years old, which means she turned fourteen sometime between November of 2007 and May of 2008, making her fourteen years old as of now.
You can see the full article with other photos here. There’s this great thing called the World Wide Internet Computer Web, and the IOC and FIG might want to join the twentieth century and use some updated methods to fact-check.
The question of age was raised before the Olympics even began, giving anyone in charge plenty of time to act:
Yang Yilin, a top contender for gold in the all-around and the uneven bars, could be 14 instead of the minimum age of 16, The Associated Press reported Sunday.
She is the third of six Olympians on the Chinese women’s gymnastics team whose age has been questioned in the lead-up to these Olympics.
Registration lists from 2003 to 2006, previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China, said Yang was born on Aug. 26, 1993, which means she will turn 15 later this month. Gymnasts must turn 16 during the year of the Olympics to be eligible to compete in the Games.
On the 2007 registration list, Yang’s birthday changed to Aug. 26, 1992, suddenly making her old enough for the Olympics, The A.P. said.
Chinese gymnastics officials have not yet addressed the question of Yang’s age. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said in a news conference Saturday that age eligibility was not an I.O.C. issue, and that the International Gymnastics Federation, known by the acronym F.I.G., is in charge of making sure gymnasts are old enough to compete.
But perhaps more controversial than an underage, ineligible competitor is the news that China may, in fact, be stunting the growth of their gymnasts to make them smaller, lighter, and more limber:
A 2005 book called Operation Yao Ming suggested that Chinese sporting authorities may be engaging in borderline-eugenic practices; it is no harder in principle to select the very young, and even informally “breed”, for small size than it is for superhuman height. And once you’ve got your candidates, it is frankly far easier to stunt their growth than it is to hasten it. [...]
[...] The whole reason for age limits in gymnastics is that smaller performers are inherently capable of more difficult flips, flexes, and flimflamadoos than larger ones; their centre of mass is less far from the physical centre of their bodies, allowing them to achieve a higher rate of rotation in gymnastic manoeuvres.
But this shouldn’t be surprising when you take into account China’s history. They are about the collective, about national unity superceding individual feelings. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired, injured, hungry, lonely, parentally deprived, or underage, you drag your behind out there and tumble for the pride of your country, and God help you if you don’t. A fine attitude for the military, perhaps (taking out the underage part), but hardly conducive to the emotions of young children.
I realize that gymnastics creates athletic girls who, if they rigorously train, can be smaller and leaner and even less developed than their peers, but you can’t hide bone structure and baby teeth. There are certain characteristics to the bone structure of children, preteens, teens, and adults, and no amount of passport tampering can change that. Yes, the Chinese gymnasts outperformed our girls (albeit with a few questionable calls). This isn’t a case of USA sour grapes. This is a case of wanting peers to compete against peers and following the set rules of the competiton, and when you have children competing who are ineligible because of age then that is clearly against the rules, regardless of talent or skill.
So should China give their gold medal back? Will there be another Olympic scandal on the level of Salé and Pelletier? Thus far, it doesn’t seem like the IOC is going to do much of anything. Way to cheapen the Olympic spirit.
Oh yeah, they even had the graffiti Bart did in one of the episodes where he disses 
Fully stocked with Buzz cola and bobble-heads.
Never-ending supply of 
Basket a little heavy from all the Squishees, Buzz colas and donuts.
Employees were outfitted with Kwik-E-Mart jersey’s and an 
WooHoo! Blue Vanilla flavored Squishee.
Gettin’ my Squishee on.
