The IOC says there is nothing they can do if China provides them with technically-valid passports, which China has done this year. With respect to Yang, the IOC hasn't investigated a host of valid concerns not even including the eastern European examples referred to in SamFisher's post. Apart from the fact that the IOC is an imperfect organization, it doesn'treally want to get into what can be very political matters far any number of reasons. The fact that they don'tinvestigate a case doesn't mean there was no violation. As for Jones, it what the US that forced that issue and ended up jaling her.
Not to defend Karolyi as a whiner because there is something to be said for losing with class but he's an old cold war guy with a ton of experience. He's an expert in his field and he knows all the underhanded crap that goes on behind the scenes, the techniques that the old Communists used to use because he used them himself, and all the nonsense involved with the sport. Karolyi's opinions carry a great deal of weight. He's shown that he's perfectly willing to sacrifice his pupils to win and yet he is abiding by the rules while the Chinese are not.
And this is pissing him off. He's probably a pretty good judge of a gymnist's age given he's been training these girls so long. I don't think you see too many editorials besmurching his character (other then that he's a whiner) because most accept that his biggest beef is the rule prevents him from training whomever he chooses.
Oh wow.. that's so not true. He's been characterized as a win or else coach for decades! That's why he retired from coaching. The idea of the age limit was to protect kids, but if it's not working then why keep it.
I am not disputing whether she is 14 or not. She was stripped of the medals as a result of the deal with prosecutors, she just "returned" them voluntarily. I am not, but I am curiously as to what has happened there. there is an eight year period where medals can be revoked. You don't need to be an expert to know that.
I think we are on the same page here. There is likely a violation -- but the fact that because it can't be proven, on paper it means that there are no violation. Imperfection shouldn't amount to ignorance. The fact that IOC is being ignorant of this is not because of imperfection. doing so essentially means they silently acknowledges this fact and is putting out the message that they are allowing this trend to continue.
Yep they sure did, they cheated and won the gold medal, and there is nothing the IOC is going to do about it. It is obvious to everyone in the world tht doesn't want to have their country look bad that they used underage girls. Oh well...they aren't the first to cheat and probably won't be the last. DD
Even though China is hosting the Olympics It is ultimately IOC's responsibility to control the Games, including judges, qualification and rules. They have the right to disqualify anyone and team, not China. The fact that they turned a blind eye to Chinese team, means that, if anything, the IOC is has the bigger blame. If you can't have effective measures to stop cheating at Games, you fail. The fact that they are afraid to escalate this issue means that they simply allow this behaviour. If Americans wants it, they can too. Just ask the Passport office to change the birthdate. Oh and, it's not cheating until you get caught. This is the golden rule of cheating. If you've cheated on tests or exams you'd know.
Show me!! Just because NYT says so doesn't mean it is true. Of coure you will never understand this logic.
No I don't understand BOTNET logic denial subroutine 3.4556. I never will. here's the report my friend, fresh from CCTV to you, no NYT bashing is going to help you now: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZvU3w6OEBzE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZvU3w6OEBzE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> You're welcome.
Oh, man. Thanks, SAMFISHER... I especially liked the part where it says that 女孩真正地是一束孩子，并且不應該在奧林匹克。 中國在。 That's all I needed to know! Thanks! 'course, I don't know what the F those peeps are saying, yo. No Nintendo© Nada.
I'm not sure being younger than 16 is an advantage in gymnastics. Girls (and boys) younger than that are probably going to be at a disadvantage due to being unfamiliar with their bodies changing because of puberty. This will offset any advantages from being being small and light--not to mention that younger people are also emotionally less mature, which will make them more prone to mental errors. The result is that there is probably a net disadvantage to competing at a younger age. One reason why I think no one really cares about the 16 year age requirement is because breaking the age rule generally results in no net performance gains (unlike steroids).
Of all the ways to cheat, it's hard to even imagine this as cheating. Does China exploit minors - maybe, but if you compare that to the parents who make their kids do gymnastics committing them to early arthrithis - what can you say? There's about 50 other things that are more problematic than this regarding China.
She actually looked like 17-18 for me. LOL, my age-meter doesn't work that well. She looked way prettier when younger too.
