Another Chinese Olympic Scandal
Filed under: Zportz
We thought some of those girls looked quite young!
The Associated Press has dug up some Chinese media reports that show one of the girls who helped the Chinese women's gymnastics team capture gold at the Olympics on Tuesday did not meet minimum age requirements for competition.
Apparently, just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13!
Gymnasts have to be or turn 16 years old during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games. That would have totally made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week!!
In its report on November 3rd, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games
The AP found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page.
Later that afternoon, the website was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.
Shady, shady!
Zhang Hongliang, an official with China's gymnastics delegation at the games, said Thursday the differing ages which have appeared in Chinese media reports had not been checked in advance with the gymnastics federation:
"It's definitely a mistake. Never has any media outlet called me to check the athletes' ages."
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said repeatedly that a passport is the "accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility," and that He and China's other gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible. The International Olympics Committee also checked the girls' passports and deemed them valid.
We wonder how easy it is to doctor passports in China!
Can't they do DNA tests to determine age?
Maybe the IOC should look into that for the 2012 London games to make sure everything is fair!!
[Image via Getty Images.]
Those assholes are some shady fuckers, alright.
comunist country!!!!
those bitches
What a crafty little nation
Lets cut her in half and count the rings. Everyone needs to quit cryin, the squints will never fess up and we got out asses kicked. Bad day for the US, move on.
Oh and 3rd bitches
BIG SURPRISE!!!!!
GET OFF THE CHINESE BASHING PEREZ!
fuck china
i knew they didn't look old enough! shady shady.
Yeah, let's carbon date all the athletes. Seriously though, it does give China an advantage to use girls of any age. There are so many incredibly talented gymnasts in this country that could be competitive at 14/15 but when they have to wait because of age - they are not as competitive at 18/19. Their bodies grow taller and puberty affects them. I don't mind 14 year-olds competing, as long as every country is allowed to compete with younger gymnasts.
fuck liars
fuck communists
Its always been alleged that the chinese gymnastis have been younger then the 16 they claim. They get these kids from daycare and start training them at an "elite" level at the age of 3. Most of the chinese 'women' on the gymnastic team look younger then 13 actually…
fuck chinese gymnasts
wow.. 13?
i don't have a tv at home so i haven't been keeping up with the olympics, except for the scandals that perez posted. so i don't know what any of the atheletes look like…
well she's young.. she must have been pressured into this by her parents.. when i was 13 i wieghed around 105 pounds (i weigh like 116 now lol) and i was healthy and somewhat atheletic (jogged, walked, lap swimming, easy stuff like that) but i couldn't even reach past my KNEES without bend my legs. and the splits? no matter what i did… i'd always end up pulling something >.
Ugh, China and their shady tactics.
olympics are seeming sketchy this year
lol either i type slow or alot of people just wait for a chance to be the first to post a comment.. i'm number 15… and it said no comments when i was typing. oh wells
first & wow!
nobody likes a cheater!
The fact that most of the girls were still losing baby teeth should have said something there. Just saying…
no they can't do DNA tests it olny shows what blood type you are
Seriously perez, thoe girls looked like they were 12 years old at most, it was weird. No one found their appearances suspicious beforehand??
their gold medals should be taken away!!
i KNEW IT. those girls look like
they are six. prbly picked up in
a geisha house.
{{{{ China haz 2/cheat/…..2 win }}}}}}}}}}}}
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effen lozerzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz bitchezzzzzzzzzz
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if it is proven that they are underage would anything happen? i know some have said they could lose their medal but i also heard that once a medal is awarded it cant be taken back.
Gymnastics is never truly a fair sport. Remember Sydney 2000 when Svetlana Khorkina did not have the vault set properly for her? There are people who set the vault to required specs, and the officials did not do it properly. She said to the judges before vaulting that it was too low, but they would not let her change it. She vaulted as best she could and got silver. She should've been given the right to adjust the vault, but she was denied a fair chance. She should've walked away with gold. Same thing with mens gymnastics…in the last Olympics, one of the Hamm twins got gold and he clearly didn't deserve it. Another gymnast had a similar unfair situation, South Korean Yang Tae Young. He was mistakenly given the wrong start value for his parellel bars routine, and HUGE mistake on the judge's part that should have left him with Gold. Instead, Hamm got it because of a major error on the judge's part. Gymnastics is NEVER fair.
Re: Frag The Paps – "Count the rings"….lol
can you honestly say you're surprised?
it's over. they would've won without her anyways.
next time, the FIG should look into these things more. I mean how could you NOT be suspicious of their ages?
Re: gdeeaz – Nope. You can lose medals. Recently an athlete gave back medals won years ago because it turned out she was doping the whole time.
That is so stupid. I mean, seriously, do they not realize that this is not only affecting the honor code of one of the oldest world traditions, but also politically. People are not going to trust China after this. It sure makes me wonder…. If they're so willing to break the rules to win in the Olympic games, what's to say they wouldn't pull something like this in the political spectrum??
DNA tests can't determine age. Full body X-rays can give a pretty accurate number.
The same thing happened with Korea in past games. They couldn't prove anything until one the girls on the Korean team had her pic taken. They noticed that her baby teeth had just fallen out and her perm. teeth were beginning grow in. She was disqualified.
Plus, some of the other gym coaches have been trying to prove this from the beginning of the games, but with out hard core proof, the other gymnast are screwed.
Doesn't really surprise me though that China would pull something like this.
Or the Chinese are telling the truth, and she is 16.
I lived in China for 2.5 years. They can/will forge anything you need. It's not an issue. Those girls are no where close to 16. Asians look younger, but not that much.
i have to say i agree completely with CreativeOne
Re: JoeIsAmazing – nobody likes a cheater, but no one can resist one
Re: gdeeaz –
Yes, if it can be proven that they are underage, their medal can be taken for team comp.
Dude, they don't need to DOCTOR the passports, they issue them! They also issue birth certificates, and they also desperately want to win medals, you work it out!
geeez, who cares???
All i care about in the olympics is Michael Phelps!!!
Sooo Hot!!
Well, we need to find out the truth, because that is cheating and they should have the gold taken from them if this is true. I say it is true because the girl (even with all the makeup on) does not even look 12.
LOL. the passports are issued by the government, which control the olympics, so of course the passport documents are OFFICIAL. however, it does not mean they are TRUTHFUL.
keep in mind that a successful IMAGE means everything to the chinese government, and they don't care how many singers, fireworks, or documents they have to fake to get it.
I thought the British diver kid was only 14?
Regardless of the ages, the fact remains that they were just better. Even if they met the age requirement, it wouldn't have had any affect on the mistakes that the US made.
There are quite a few ways, to determine age (it is done all the time for John/Jane Doe victims)…but, apparently, it wasn't all that important for the IOC or the IGF, to figure out..
it is shady, but get over it. The olympics ruled they were eligible and the Chinese aren't going to confess. With all this bitching it just makes the US look like whining cry babies.
Ooo only counts for gymnasts - didn't read it properly! : P
um us should win the gold then!
Lie, cheat and steal the gold medals. Everyone knew that the Olympics in China where going to be shady. Stupid Olympic commitee it's their fault.
As a gymnast, both collegiate and club, for the past 12 years, there is no way in hell those girls are 16. And it's about as easy to forge something in a totalitarian regime like China as it is to forge a gym class note in an American high school. Someone made an ignorant comment that the Chinese would have won anyway. What kind of moron are you? 1) MANY of their girls are under 16, not just one 2) How can anyone say what would have happened and 3) we lost by 2.3 points, which, if Sacramone doesn't fall and Johnson and Liukin don't step out of bounds on floor, we come close to making up. They could have been rattled by the Chinese- no excuse, they choked- but I'm saying had the Chinese performed differently, i.e, without 13 year olds, the U.S. MIGHT have performed differently. This isn't about China-hating, it's about what's fair. A full investigation should be done, and if China is found to have cheated- which they did- their gold medal should be stripped. It won't happen, though. The IOC has turned a blind eye to so much shit from the Chinese they're going to keep doing it.
Actually one of our divers, Tom Daly, is only 14 so I'm not sure if this age thing is right. He is definitely only 14 and he's allowed to compete legally!