Age of Chinese Gymnists Investigated
 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapc...age/index.html

This is actually a very, very bad situation for the chinese.

I am praying to god that those girls were actually 16 or older, because if they weren't, some bad things are going to happen.

First of all, the chinese olympic commitee is part of their nationalized sports program, meaning that they have 2 choices:
1. Admit they intentionally lied and committed fraud
2. Blame the girls and say that they lied to the government about their ages.

Either way, if those girls are not at least 16, they will never compete in the olympics again, and if the government admits to fraud, the IOC could have reason to further restrict chinese participation in future olympic events, if only in gymnastics.

The chinese government is smart enough to know this, and I'm sure will have convincing documents. For the interests of international cooperation, I hope that, regardless of their actual age, the IOC determines the documents good enough to convince them the girls are 16. Otherwise China is going to look like some real shitheads on the international stage, and I don't think their government will appreciate that.

What do you think?

As opposed to the broken promises and deportations when civil rights are concerned?

From what I've read, the Olympic committee accepted the claim that the Chinese girls are 16, so they don't have to fear being labeled as shitheads by the IOC at least.

Also, look up Yang Yun. She confessed to being 14 during the Sydney Olympics. This isn't really anything new or outrageous.
To be fair, there was probably a good chance they wouldn't have competed again anyways. Only one member of the team was over 16.

My long-standing political philosophy has always been, "if the only source of pride for your country is a 14 year old girl you've raised since birth to be a perfect athletic machine, something is wrong with your country's goals."

The government knew. They gave them the fake passports. Personally, I think there should be some sort of longterm punishment to China for cheating. I know everyone thinks this is China's big coming out party and she has to impress us, but even if I gave two cares about that, cheating in an international sporting event isn't the right way to get people to like you.

OK, it hasn't exactly been determined whether or not these girls actually are cheating yet. The artical only goes to say that they are being INFORMALLY investigated once again. And just because there's a couple bloggers/hackers who claim to have found documents saying otherwise online and having taken "photos" of these documents doesn't mean that these documents couldn't have been photoshopped, even if it is a credible source.

And lastly, the autobiography is the ONLY evidence you could really use here, but even that gets sketchy because honestly, who writes an autobiography at 16?

If that was the case, they'd have been in trouble after the opening ceremony. They've already admitted that the ceremony itself and the version that appeared on international television were not the same ceremony; there "may have possibly been some prerecorded footage" due to "weather conditions on the day of the ceremony." Plus they admitted to filling empty seats in the stadium with "volunteer cheerleaders," replacing the girl who sang China's national anthem with another little girl who lip synced to the first little girl's voice, because the first girl "wasn't cute enough" to be on camera, etc etc.

Where (and why) does this comment come from? I don't think anyone has said that girl is China's only source of pride. China may be fucked up in many ways, but their rich culture and influence all over the world is something they truly are proud of.

Which isn't solely their fault. There were complaints about issues like that (lip-synching, digital edition, etc) back in Athens, Sidney, and possibly Atlanta, though admittedly I didn't follow the Olympics in 1996.

I think the fact that the article saying the girl was 13 being taken down by the Chinese government after it was pointed out gives a little credence to the fact that they probably cheated. Also, I don't think the opening really counts as cheating. The whole point of that is for everything to be pretty and amazing and all that, as compared to this, which is the hosting country knowingly giving themselves an unfair advantage in an international sporting event.

If its not their only source of pride then you don't need to do it, cheat, and then lie about it.

Its the act of somebody who is desperate for acceptence and willing to do anything to prove themselves. But here the only people proving themselves are the chinese government. They could care less about the individual achievements of the atheletes.