BOTTOM LINE Chinese won because they were flat out better than the USA. It didn't help that the USA choked(well one person). All the cheating accusations of false age are closer to assumption than truth at this point. They have passports, it can't be proven. That being said, Asians age at a slower rate than other races. That is a common occurrence. It is possible that they are legitimately 15 years of age. They may have very strict diets that do affect what their face looks like. Limited sun exposure from being in the gym all the time will slow aging process. There are many scientifically feasible scenarios where the girls can look like that and be 15 years old. However, in four years at the London Olympics, I still don't think these girls would look 16 years old, but most likely they are
yes because they have the magic secret of PEARL CREAM....lol. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JaD_fvehAaU&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JaD_fvehAaU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
i think at the london olympics these girls will look closer to 12. i dont think less exposure to sunlight will slow the aging process... you'll look pale but you wont all of a sudden stop aging... but youre right. the US choked. the door opened slightly but the US team failed to take advantage.
yeah silver medal, man they suck! got beat by a country that takes little girls away at the age of 3 and trains them like professionals while they live in a boot camp away from their parents. Its not like they were in their home country or anything.
US girls handled it much more professionally than their coach couple. http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/be...d4?slug=dw-karolyis081308&prov=yhoo&type=lgns
From SI.com: Do the girls from China look young? Hell ya but so do almost all the girls IMO. If you showed me a pic of Shawn Johnson before the Olympics and asked me how old she was, I probably would have guessed somewhere between 10-12 years old. I've been a big fan of the Olympics for a long time and always loved watching Bela/US girls do their thing, but this is sounding like sour grapes IMO. The girls do look young, but then to come out and then say that the judges are deliberately stalling the U.S. girls and making them wait is ridiculous. I'm not a fan of the new scoring system but from what I saw, a lot of athletes had to wait for the scores to come out, no matter what country they were from.
man alicia is a really pretty girl but she choked not once, but twice. I feel really bad for her and her teammates they must be fuming on the inside. Especially the one girl who hurt her foot (the one who did the uneven bars) they were saying she was going to do the beam originally. as for the age issue....if the rules now state you have to turn 16 in the year the olympics take place then thats what all the teams should go by. The chinese girls do not pass the eye test at all--documents be damned...official documents could easily be faked by any government to allow participants to compete if it means gold and national glory. The chinese along with other countries could have very well done this...we dont hear much about the other countries because their teams arent as good as the chinese team and of course the games being in Beijing this year. But if the rules now state the age limit it just didnt seem right to see the chinese kids out there participating they all looked 12 or under to me. it just didnt seem right. Just get rid of the age rule imo...if someone has the talent to make the team at 13,14 then let them. It would stop all of this controversy anyway. my question is if it does come out that anyone one of these girls are under 15 the entire team would lose their medals right? that is the right thing to do but it still wouldnt replace the feeling of winning the gold that night, the cermony and of course all the digust that the US team must have gone through (esp Alicia)
Just to put things into perspective here, and I am not taking sides. Just facts. Yes, there is evidence here that the Chinese may be using under age girls here. But the fact is that you are innocent until proven guilty. News reports are mediated. They do not constitute as hard evidence. Karolyi vetted her fraustration through the news media. In my opinion, given someone in Karolyi's position, that should have gone through *official* channels instead. Doing it through the media is irresponsible. If China's faked record, then there is nothing anyone could do. Voicing your opinion in the media without hard evidence is just irresponsible. About that report about the Sydney gymnast being under age: why haven't they taken away Yang's gold medal yet if she competed illegally? Obviously there is more to it than what's being said here.
and all that stuff about how a girl looks to determine age is just ignorant crap. This is clearly based on human judgment and has a huge error rate. Doing it here in BBS or in media only shows how ignorant you are, regardless of Chinese or American girls. Remember a 40 year old british female were passing off as a 16 year old boy? Hell, if I put on some makeup, a wig and a dress, I might be passing off a 16 year old girl too!
Not to poke another stick in the ant hill, but: Given past Chinese media reports which include comments from at least one Chinese official, and whatever online records media had access to, at least one of those girls is likely underage. Yes, the evidence is circumstantial and, but there is smoke. And the accusation can never be proven because the Chinese government is gonna stick to there guns and provide/create whatever documentation they need. ( I'm not one to judge based on looks since I have never looked my age and only recently have some folks even thought I was older than 19.) As for Karolyi, He really just wants to use 14 year olds himself and probably has a couple in mind he would have rather have had on the team, instead of that 20 year old hag . Fortunately, the nature of American nationalism, freedom of press and of speech doesn't prevent Americans themselves from calling out Karolyi's faults when they see them. From the Yahoo article real_egal linked to:
....because you can't just take it away on a whim, there has to be a formal proceeding. Plenty of admitted East German cheats have never had their medals taken away. Anyway it's not a report, it's the person's own admission on an interview on CCTV. No two ways about it.
You make valid points. Ironically, I think people SHOULD be calling out Karolyi more as in this article you reposted given the open freedom of the press for Americans. Instead, it's by and large, pooh-poohed from everything I have seen. Even NBC seems to just flirt with the topic short of fleshing out Karolyi's faults when they even have him in the studio. In the article, this line just floors me: What kills the Karolyis isn’t that the Chinese would risk the health of their children by throwing them out here before their bones and muscles mature. It’s that the Americans won’t allow the Karolyis to do it, too. I think it's dead on. How come no mention about the health/well being of gymnasts a la age???? b/c that's what it's NOT about. If at all, it's implied as another one of China's social injustices and poor treatment of its people. All the while, what becomes of all the forgotten underage gymnasts from Europe? theSAGE
I am not disputing her claims. What I am disputing is the fact that no offical inquiry took place by the IOC, which means that there is more to the story than it is reported -- exactly why it is in the "media", ie nothing more than a mediated report
Just to make my point a little bit clearer. Jone's got her Sydney medals stripped for admitting to using steroids. So why is Yang's case different? Underage is a lesser offense? Chinese won't accept it? The media report does not constitute as evidence (which it shouldn't)? IOC does not want to offend China? or IOC simply don't care? As I said, clearly there is more to it than simply guilty or innocent.
NBC is making/has made money off of Karolyi. They don't want to rip him a new one; doing so runs counter to all the rah-rah, tribal love NBC is counting on to sell commercial time. And you are right to note that the political freedoms we theoretically hold don't always translate into a social freedom we actually use. We see this all the time in political, economic, and cultural reporting. In this country, too often, the wise, hard to come to terms with opinions are relgated to small, niche resources and marginal voices. Ther reasons for that are diverse, but that is fodder for the D&D.
Not really - she said she was 14 and records confirmed it. Jones meanwhile returned her medals voluntarily and the USOC disqualified her after its own formal proceeding - after a formal criminal investigation in the US. AFTER USOC disqualified her the IOC acted, which was after she had admitted it, returned the medals, and been formally DQ'd. Unless you are an expert on the sua sponte investigation requirements of the IOC, and the IFG and the associated procedural issues, I don't think you can draw much from this. As stated earlier, dozens of East German & Soviet bloc athletes have, for quite some time, admitted that they cheated, but nothing has ever been done about it in many cases.
