The Amazing Chinese Mini-Gymnasts

If one has been following the Olympics, especially in the gymnastic competition, it is hard to ignore the domination of the Chinese athletes this year. The men have been very strong, winning gold in almost every event along with the team championship. The Chinese women have been exemplary themselves, racking up a good collection of medals including the gold in the team competition. As one watches these girls as they catapult their little bodies through space, it is even more amazing that someone looking so young can do such spectacular maneuvers.

IMAGE(http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20080813/001109b42f9b0a0ccee102.jpg)

As much as it is impressive, here also lies the problem. The age requirement for women's gymnastics is currently a minimum of 16. There are many reasons for this, some of which are discussed here:

In the 1970s, the average age of Olympic gymnastics competitors began to gradually decrease. While it was not unheard of to for teenagers to compete in the 1960s — Ludmilla Tourischeva was sixteen at her first Olympics in 1968 — they slowly became the norm, as difficulty in gymnastics increased. Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points. The 58th Congress of the FIG, held in July 1980, just before the Olympics, decided to raise the minimum age limit for major international senior competition from fourteen to fifteen.[4] The change, which came into effect two years later, didn't eliminate the problem. By the time the 1992 Olympics rolled around, elite competitors consisted almost exclusively of "pixies" — underweight, prepubertal teenagers — and concerns were raised about athlete welfare.

The FIG responded to this trend by raising the minimum age requirement for international elite competition to sixteen in 1997. This, combined with changes in the Code of Points and evolving popular opinion in the sport, have seen older gymnasts return to competition. While the average elite female gymnast is still in her middle to late teens and of below-average height and weight, it is also common to see gymnasts competing well into their twenties. At the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, the silver medalist on vault, Oksana Chusovitina, was a thirty-year old mother, and she received another silver medal on vault at the 2008 Olympics at the age of 33. At the 2004 Olympics, both the second place American team and the third placed Russians were captained by women in their mid twenties; several other teams, including Australia, France and Canada, had many older gymnasts.

There has been much speculation that China's team has a few girls which no not meet this age requirement.

IMAGE(http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20080813/001109b42f9b0a0ccee503.jpg)

Here is a good summary article by Sports Illustrated on the controversy:

SI.com: What is the consensus among the world's gymnastics journalists regarding the Chinese female gymnasts?

Swift: The consensus of those I have talked to is that at least two, three or maybe as many as four are younger than 16. If they are not younger than 16, then they are sick and in danger. There is a 68-pound girl (Deng Linlin) on that team is claiming to be 16 years old. That is not a healthy body. If she is 16 and weighs 68 pounds, someone ought to put her in a hospital. The Romanians, the Russians and the Americans all look age appropriate. The only country that apparently is cheating is China.

I have a few ideas why the IoC is doing nothing about this situation, but I'm interested in hearing what some others may think.

I'm assuming they won't challenge the Chinese authorities because nobody wants to piss off the Chinese and their pool of 1.3 billion potential consumers. Meanwhile, some guy tosses his bronze medal on the floor in protest and it's like he shot the gold medal winner.

"Pixies," huh? Almost makes severe anorexia and/or child exploitation sound adorable.

The Olympics have already been embroiled in plenty of controversy, from protests following the torch, to Tibet, pollution, lip-syncing, CGI fireworks, and issues with journalists. And just being in a nation so obviously violating human rights standards. I imagine an accusation against the actually important part of the Olympics, the nation's athletes, is something the IoC wishes to avoid because it will cast further doubt on their decision of Beijing in the first place.

Well, if the Chinese think they are going to get away with it long term, I think they could be in for a rude awakening. Just look at what happened to Marion Jones.

However, if the United States government had stepped in and declared Marion Jones had not used steroids, thinks would be a lot different for her now.

I think the most of the world community is rooting for these olympics to go off without a hitch for political reasons. China is opening itself up and no one would want to slap their hand and send them back into isolation.

"Pixies," huh? Almost makes severe anorexia and/or child exploitation sound adorable.

You left out state sponsored forgery...

nsmike wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

"Pixies," huh? Almost makes severe anorexia and/or child exploitation sound adorable.

Anorexia would definitely not be the case here. These athletes NEED food or they can't perform. Did you miss Michael Phelps' diet?

The only thing I could think of when reading that article was, "That is f*cking awesome!" I have a feeling I was supposed to have a different reaction to it.

LobsterMobster wrote:

"Pixies," huh? Almost makes severe anorexia and/or child exploitation sound adorable.

Anorexia would definitely not be the case here. These athletes NEED food or they can't perform. Did you miss Michael Phelps' diet?

Gymnastics may not require the stamina of swimming, but you can't have legs like Shawn Johnson's, or even strong enough to pull off a vault or floor exercise in the manner these girls did without proper nutrition.

One of the key problems that anorexia causes is that the body becomes so starved for nutrients that it begins consuming muscle mass. An anorexic gymnast is a contradiction in terms, as she would be too weak to perform any significant gymnastic maneuvers.

fangblackbone wrote:

You left out state sponsored forgery...

And that's the real key here. We can all have our suspicions. But honestly, without documentation from a tightly controlled government with an interest in keeping this secret, what are you going to do? Saw one of their legs off and count the rings?

If this was something that mattered I might care. If there was a clearly a correlation between being younger and being better I might care also but the American girls went 1, 2 in the individual all around.

Not sure what the argument here is. Are they being exploited or is the type of athletics they are doing going to leave them horribly handicapped? even if both are true theres probably far worse things going on in China then gymnastics.

As for the IoC they don't have any proof to work with really. Its not doping, you cant force them to take a test.

Honestly from the media coverage I've been seeing it was allot of sour grapes after China won the team event and the noise really died down when U.S went 1,2.

I agree there are likely much worse things happening in China, heck even in the US, but I don't think it is sour grapes. The Olympics is supposed to be about fair competition, the rules should be upheld if the country breaking them wins gold or doesn't even make it past a qualifier.

Like you said though Jowner, I'm not sure what the IOC can do. They rely on the Chinese government to provide proof, which if they have the will the government can of course forge.

If the standard for finding fault with something is whether there might be something worse happening someplace in the same country, why do we even bother to worry about anything less serious than, say, child rape or serial killers who eat their victims? Whatever the issue, there's usually something more serious to worry about. Fortunately we have the capacity to concerned with both serious social problems and issues of competition in sports.

jowner wrote:

If this was something that mattered I might care. If there was a clearly a correlation between being younger and being better I might care also but the American girls went 1, 2 in the individual all around.

This is the big question I have. Is there some inherent advantage to being younger in gymnastics?

Quintin_Stone wrote:
jowner wrote:

If this was something that mattered I might care. If there was a clearly a correlation between being younger and being better I might care also but the American girls went 1, 2 in the individual all around.

This is the big question I have. Is there some inherent advantage to being younger in gymnastics?

From the OP you filthy skimmers,

Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points.

and since younger, often pre-pubescent girls are significantly smaller and lighter, it has an advantage.

kaostheory wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
jowner wrote:

If this was something that mattered I might care. If there was a clearly a correlation between being younger and being better I might care also but the American girls went 1, 2 in the individual all around.

This is the big question I have. Is there some inherent advantage to being younger in gymnastics?

From the OP you filthy skimmers,

Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points.

and since younger, often pre-pubescent girls are significantly smaller and lighter, it has an advantage.

In addition to that, these younger girls have not yet developed a sense of what is dangerous and are more willing to do or be convinced that a riskier maneuver or routine is safe.

Though it is clear that the Chinese have been the most visible offenders when it comes to "age doping", they are hardly the only ones. The IOC has generally turned a blind eye to this sort of thing to everyone.

Funkenpants wrote:

If the standard for finding fault with something is whether there might be something worse happening someplace in the same country, why do we even bother to worry about anything less serious than, say, child rape or serial killers who eat their victims? Whatever the issue, there's usually something more serious to worry about. Fortunately we have the capacity to concerned with both serious social problems and issues of competition in sports.

This works when comparing say murder and rape as both should be something people care about but the honestly think of the worse possible stuff that might be going on in China to girls under 16 being at the Olympics.... If the offense was maybe larger and provable like say the Chinese swim team and track team doping I would be much interested.

As for the sour grapes I'm Canadian and I've been watching the coverage on CBC our government funded channel and NBC and the commentary on both has been much different when it comes to this. The Canadian version is much lighter partly as were not as invested directly competing against China but at the same time its level headed in the sense sure they do look under 16 but we cant prove it. Compare this to the over the top former coach on NBC and the color commentators during the events who wouldn't let you forget that these girls might be under 16... Then the Americans went 1,2 in the individual. Not sure if it has re-surfaced as a major issue in the singles individual events as I honestly haven't been watching anymore Gymnastics. I've been watching Olympic coverage every day and I'm done with swimming and gymnastics for 4 years. BTW no one will care if they were 6 years old besides the people directly involved and the hardcore fans in 2 weeks.

edit: Kaos I saw that but its still ambiguous. I could make a claim that older more experienced gymnasts generally didn't fold under pressure. That could be a fair assumption. Point still is that its not doping which is a hands down your cheating and getting a huge advantage and its not exactly provable. Kinda lends to the suspicion of why China could be using underage girls. Its a perceived advantage that they will never be caught for.

nsmike wrote:
kaostheory wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
jowner wrote:

If this was something that mattered I might care. If there was a clearly a correlation between being younger and being better I might care also but the American girls went 1, 2 in the individual all around.

This is the big question I have. Is there some inherent advantage to being younger in gymnastics?

From the OP you filthy skimmers,

Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points.

and since younger, often pre-pubescent girls are significantly smaller and lighter, it has an advantage.

In addition to that, these younger girls have not yet developed a sense of what is dangerous and are more willing to do or be convinced that a riskier maneuver or routine is safe.

I also share the opinion that they haven't developed as big of an understanding of the pressure of specific moments or haven't learned to fully appreciate the gravity of situations as 16 or 20 year-olds have, which results in them being more able to stay calm and just focus on their routine. I heard one of the TV analysts talking about this and it made a lot of sense.

Gymnast not need be 16 at the date of the competitions. They merely need to be at least 16 during the year of the competitions. Some of them are officially 15, for what it's worth, and they're participating because they'll turn 16 by this year's end.

kaostheory wrote:

From the OP you filthy skimmers,

Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points.

and since younger, often pre-pubescent girls are significantly smaller and lighter, it has an advantage.

tl;dr

Could you sum up your post for me? thx

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the news reports from last year that were found documenting the ages of a couple of the girls at 13. So unless they magically aged three years in one year, there's all the proof you need.

Article

Online documents, listed in a series of articles by The New York Times and followed up by Associated Press at the end of July and in August, call into question whether either of the gymnasts will reach their 16th birthday this year.

The documents relating to He include a page from the Chengdu Sports Bureau website from 2006, which gave her year of birth as 1994, a report in last November's Cities Games at Wuhan which gave her age then as 13, and a story in the China Daily newspaper in May this year, which gave her age as 14.

Yang's age was given in online files from the General Administration of Sport in China. Records from 2004, 2005 and 2006 give her date of birth as August 26th 1993. That would make Yang only 15 this year, and 14 when she competed in last year's world championships.

Seems like it's not just speculation to me.

GioClark wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

You left out state sponsored forgery...

And that's the real key here. We can all have our suspicions. But honestly, without documentation from a tightly controlled government with an interest in keeping this secret, what are you going to do? Saw one of their legs off and count the rings?

Take them stateside, date them, and see if you get arrested.

I read once that girls between the ages of 7 and 14 have a higher strength to weight ratio than any other demographic of human. The only reason they aren't throwing cars around is because they're so light.

With American children getting fatter and fatter, beware Hannah Montana concerts. They're a massacre waiting to happen.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
kaostheory wrote:

From the OP you filthy skimmers,

Smaller, lighter girls generally excelled in the more challenging acrobatic elements required by the redesigned Code of Points.

and since younger, often pre-pubescent girls are significantly smaller and lighter, it has an advantage.

tl;dr

Could you sum up your post for me? thx

China bad, America guns

better?

LobsterMobster wrote:
GioClark wrote:

And that's the real key here. We can all have our suspicions. But honestly, without documentation from a tightly controlled government with an interest in keeping this secret, what are you going to do? Saw one of their legs off and count the rings?

Take them stateside, date them, and see if you get arrested.

Win!

jowner wrote:

As for the sour grapes I'm Canadian and I've been watching the coverage on CBC our government funded channel and NBC and the commentary on both has been much different when it comes to this. The Canadian version is much lighter partly as were not as invested directly competing against China but at the same time its level headed in the sense sure they do look under 16 but we cant prove it.

Being invested in the outcome or sport is a huge part of whether people care about this. For example, rules infractions in soccer/futbal don't get American viewers excited because most Americans don't care about the sport. If the Chinese were cheating at badminton or ping pong, would anyone in the U.S. notice? Gymnastics just happens to be one of those sports where we traditionally do very well, and we want to see our girls win. That's the nature of being fans.

Out of curiosity, if someone cheated in the hockey finals in Canada, would CBC and everyone else in Canada chalk it up as something not to be overly concerned about?

Funkenpants wrote:
jowner wrote:

As for the sour grapes I'm Canadian and I've been watching the coverage on CBC our government funded channel and NBC and the commentary on both has been much different when it comes to this. The Canadian version is much lighter partly as were not as invested directly competing against China but at the same time its level headed in the sense sure they do look under 16 but we cant prove it.

Being invested in the outcome or sport is a huge part of whether people care about this. For example, rules infractions in soccer/futbal don't get American viewers excited because most Americans don't care about the sport. If the Chinese were cheating at badminton or ping pong, would anyone in the U.S. notice? Gymnastics just happens to be one of those sports where we traditionally do very well, and we want to see our girls win. That's the nature of being fans.

Out of curiosity, if someone cheated in the hockey finals in Canada, would CBC and everyone else in Canada chalk it up as something not to be overly concerned about?

Totally depends on the cheating. Entire Russian team is doping? War. One of their junior players is too old but we cant prove it? O well lets beat them anyways and if not life goes on. It just seems in the grand scheme of type of cheating that can be going on in the Olympics I would want the IoC chasing doping or other serious cheating that they can prove then marginal advantages in a sport that they have little hope of putting a dent in.

edit: This is also not a new thing and has been happening for a very long time in the opposite direction. Lots of team sports have competitions separated by age groups where this pops up all the time and it always fizzles out when theres no proof. Some people think Freddy Adu is 1-2-3 years older then he is but hes been playing in various youth competitions because his documents say otherwise and you cant prove he isn't. Remember a couple years ago when the kid in the little league world series was lighting it up until it was exposed he was 2 years? to old.

Greg Oden? guy looks like hes 45 but his mom carried the birth certificate that said otherwise to every one of his games so they wouldn't get in trouble.

Well, if the Chinese think they are going to get away with it long term, I think they could be in for a rude awakening. Just look at what happened to Marion Jones.

However, if the United States government had stepped in and declared Marion Jones had not used steroids, thinks would be a lot different for her now.

I think the most of the world community is rooting for these olympics to go off without a hitch for political reasons. China is opening itself up and no one would want to slap their hand and send them back into isolation.

I tend to agree with this. This controversy is not about the alleged cheating of a particular athlete, but the collective cheating of the national governing body of the host nation. This is huge. If the IoC declared the gymnasts ineligible, it would not only dishonor the athletes, but the ruling party of China. (even if the dishonor is deserved) They could not just strip the medals of the underage gymnasts, but would be forced to somehow sanction or punish China. If this happened in the midst of the Olympics, who knows what China would do?

The truth about this will come out eventually, in fact, the IoC may have definitive proof now. I would guess that they are waiting till the games are over before acting.

Nomad wrote:

The truth about this will come out eventually, in fact, the IoC may have definitive proof now. I would guess that they are waiting till the games are over before acting.

Yeah, better wait till all the foreign athletes are out of the country...

Nomad wrote:

I tend to agree with this. This controversy is not about the alleged cheating of a particular athlete, but the collective cheating of the national governing body of the host nation. This is huge. If the IoC declared the gymnasts ineligible, it would not only dishonor the athletes, but the ruling party of China. (even if the dishonor is deserved) They could not just strip the medals of the underage gymnasts, but would be forced to somehow sanction or punish China. If this happened in the midst of the Olympics, who knows what China would do?

Would we even be talking about "dishonor" if this happened in a Western country? No, it would be that the host nation cheated, got caught, and had to take it's lumps publicly for acting like an ass.

This reminds me of why I stopped working for Fujitsu...the Asian concept of 'saving face' encourages crappy behavior because no one ever suffers the consequences of bad decisions. Everything is swept under the rug in the name of harmony and togetherness.

I don't see how the Marion Jones situation is even comparable. I don't remember ever when everyone was saying she was a cheat and the U.S was saying no shes not. Everything was left to the drug testing which she passed. The U.S never had to step in and defend her and they never would. They would just say well is she passing drug tests? yes? well then we don't have anything to say on the matter.

Honestly the doping and age parallels are not even comparable. No one can prove these athletes are beyond a doubt too young because even if you find evidence the Chinese can just counter the claim with forged documents that say otherwise.

Really this is nothing new in sport and even happens when age is not even a rule. Miguel Tejada could be 2 years older then he says he is. Like I said before 2 weeks from now it will blow over. Why would the IoC stick their neck out and yank medals from people they cant prove are underage? theres honestly nothing to gain by flexing their muscles on this. I also would bet 100% that theres atleast several Soccer players who are overage but were registered under 23 in this Olympics. One way they moved to making this a less issue is every team is allowed to bring 3 overage players if they choose so maybe some of those guys fall into that category anyways assuming their team doesn't already have 3 overage players.

I don't know what they do in Canada, but my local youth sports are pretty anal about age ever since the Danny Almonte scandal.

Funkenpants wrote:

I don't know what they do in Canada, but my local youth sports are pretty anal about age ever since the Danny Almonte scandal.

I never said Canada doesn't take it seriously I said if you cant prove it your wasting allot of time getting worked up about it. As the situation stands right now any proof that they are underage can be countered by China that they are which is a stalemate. The IoC might care if China was going 1,2 in every singles event but they didn't.