Chinese gymnasts use fake passports to get around Olympic age requirements

well bezunesh bekele who ran 2:23 for the marathon this year is 4-6 and 82 pounds is 24 years old. so you can be small regardless of age.

also that Romanian coach bela karolyi if he is complaining about the competion being too young, ( 12 year old half people i saw him quoted as saying. a 12 year old should not be able to beat a person 16 or older if both are well trained, athletes will keep on improving until around 30, so if these gymnasts are 12 years old imagine how good they can be in 10-20 years if they dont quit.

that karolyi is a creep in my opinion having read a usa today article on him years ago that said he only allows the gymnasts him and his wife coaches to have a MAXIMUM of 800-900 calories a day, when they are training 5-8 hours a day, i say that is child cruelty. sorry about drifting on the subject but child abusers make my blood boil.

doug burke wrote:

sorry about drifting on the subject but child abusers make my blood boil.

Read up on the Chinese gymnastics program if you really want your blood to boil. You'll love how they "recruit" their talent.

slaves to the state wrote:

doug burke wrote:

sorry about drifting on the subject but child abusers make my blood boil.

Read up on the Chinese gymnastics program if you really want your blood to boil. You'll love how they "recruit" their talent.

Pretty much all female world class tennis players started their careers in American tennis academies, and their training methods aren´t exactly "child friendly" either.

Are you seriously making that comparison? Has it come to that?

I like how obsessive Americans get over women's gymnastics.

links?

tennis academies... not quite the same as the state taking a 3 or 4 year old and from her family and putting her into what is effectively boot camp.

True. I had the chance to send my daughter away for figure skating. Thankfully, I said no way. To think that my 10 year old daughter would be 5 hours away living, eating, breathing skating was crazy.

Now, 8 years later, she is about to leave for college where she will be running track and XC.

After her first XC race as a 7th grader she called her best friend from skating, told her about the race, and said it was the best decision she ever made.

The point is, I could have made up her mind for her when she was 10, it just didn't seem right. pre-teens and teens are supposed to hang out with friends and go to high school sports events.

Imagine the "state" taking your child from you (along with their childhood)? And, most of these gymnasts will end up as popular as you and I. Unless you win gold there really is not future.

doug burke wrote:

a 12 year old should not be able to beat a person 16 or older if both are well trained, athletes will keep on improving until around 30, so if these gymnasts are 12 years old imagine how good they can be in 10-20 years if they dont quit.

You're so wrong...we're not talking about distance running or most other sports here. We're talking about gymnastics, specifically women's gymnastics, a sport for which smallness pays a huge premium.

You are an idiot. Most gymnasts peak in their late teens of early 20s, at least all the very good ones. Retton, Nadia, etc. etc. all retired at 20 or younger. The teens you see today, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, etc.. this will probably be their last Olympics. Gymnastics is very different from running, especially considering all these top girls usually start at around 3.

PEOVE IT!

They found no proof of it. With your logic we can also speculate that Shawn Johnson is 12 since she is under 5ft and under 100 pounds then. She fits right in with the smaller Chinese girls. People not always look their age. I've seen kids in high school who look like they should be in the 5th grade. i also have seen kids in college who look like they should be in jr. high. Bela Kiroly is full of crap, he likes to talk just like some people here without having absolutely no proof. How can he possibly know how old they are? Was he present when those girls were born and followed their childhood up tho this point? NO he has not, so quit your speculations and talk only when you have proof!

PEOVE IT!

They found no proof of it. With your logic we can also speculate that Shawn Johnson is 12 since she is under 5ft and under 100 pounds then. She fits right in with the smaller Chinese girls. People not always look their age. I've seen kids in high school who look like they should be in the 5th grade. i also have seen kids in college who look like they should be in jr. high. Bela Kiroly is full of crap, he likes to talk just like some people here without having absolutely no proof. How can he possibly know how old they are? Was he present when those girls were born and followed their childhood up tho this point? NO he has not, so quit your speculations and talk only when you have proof!

Did you watch the events? It should have been utterly obvious to the most casual observer that some of those girls were not above the age of 12. None of the other countries had such young looking girls on their teams.

Has Karolyi ever compared the size of the average Chinese with that of the average American? With a population like China's, they're more likely to see athletic outliers with body sizes that small.

Wow, so the guy's point is based on the fact that Americans are bigger than the Chinese. Uh huh, tell me something I don't know.

Um, there is proof, if you bothered to use your idiot eyes to read the NYTimes article. The Chinese girls in question SAID they were 13 last year in television and newspaper interviews. WITH THEIR OWN MOUTH.

News lady: \"Very good job! You did so well! How old are you?\"

Chinese gymnast: \"13.\"

They also had their birthdays published in their Provincial gymnast programs. The same birthdays were mysteriously changed in their passports by 2 years. Hmmmm, how did that happen?

Oh well, anything they get will be ill-gotten. This Olympics is becoming a joke in terms of the judged events. Figures - that always happens for host countries... and communist countries. I suppose those gymnasts don\'t need to be their actual age - in those countries, you are however old your totalitarian government says you are, and you do what it tells you to do.

I can\'t wait for track & field to start, to get rid of these judged events that have become a farce. As long as there\'s a time or a distance measurement that fairly awards the medals, I\'ll be sure to watch it.

If that's the case, then why doesn't the Gymnastics federation do anything about it. If there is indeed proof, then they wouldn't be competing. The IOC is NOT run by a "totalitarian country" or "communist country"

If they are indeed underage then I give them props because a bunch of 11,12, and 13 year olds just kicked the crap of the U.S. team that was in their late teens and early 20's. You don't see that happen everyday. And if you're so against events where judging is involved, then I'm sure you were just as irritated when American Paul Hamm WON the gold 4 years ago due to a judging error as you are with the Chinese girls today!

Fact: some of the Chinese womens gymnasts are underage

Also fact: the chinese team outperformed the US team.

Bitch all you want about the underage part, but the judging didnt impact the result. Even Karolyi and the US biased announcers agreed the Chinese were superior today than the US. Alicia Sacramone didn't perform well - the Chinese weren't even THAT exceptional.

king wrote:

If that's the case, then why doesn't the Gymnastics federation do anything about it. If there is indeed proof, then they wouldn't be competing. The IOC is NOT run by a "totalitarian country" or "communist country"

If they are indeed underage then I give them props because a bunch of 11,12, and 13 year olds just kicked the crap of the U.S. team that was in their late teens and early 20's. You don't see that happen everyday. And if you're so against events where judging is involved, then I'm sure you were just as irritated when American Paul Hamm WON the gold 4 years ago due to a judging error as you are with the Chinese girls today!

Go back to China, traitor

U.S. Americans should be ashamed they got beat by a bunch of nine year olds. This isn't the NBA where the old guys got tired of losing money to the young guys so they make them wait another year to join the league.