Chinese gymnasts

This may have been covered in the Olympics thread, but I'm not wading through 70 pages to find it...

Everyone pretty much knows those Chinese gymnasts are not 16, like they're supposed to be to compete. Why have we not seen a story yet from somebody who found some villager somewhere who says she has proof one of them was born in 1999 or who found an official who will admit to forging documents on their behalf? I feel like this is McGwire-Sosa, where we all should be able to see it and yet I'd be willing to bet nobody's going to find out the truth for close to 10 years. And yes, I do think that eventually the truth will come out and the Chinese team may or may not be stripped of its gold at that point. But it seems like this story could be done now, and it's not.

Thoughts?

 

I wonder why it's so difficult to find sources that are willing to go on record to embarrass the Chinese government.

 

Easy. The predominately male sports media is conditioned to suspend disbelief when a girl tells him she is older than she actually is.

 

It's sort of impossible to cover anything not on the state-sanctioned Olympic itinerary in China right now. For example,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/13/olympics2008.chinathemedia

 

Someone could try to capture one of the gymnasts and make her talk, but they're pretty slippery and agile.

 

I think this "controversy" is stupid. Now we're to think the Chinese were at an advantage because there team was LESS experienced? They're so young they didn't recognize the pressure of the moment?
If you can't test them to get an age, you've got to take their word. But we're forgetting China has 1 BILLION people, do I think they may be able to breed or somehow find five to 10 very undersized girls for gymnastics with that big of a haystack, Absolutely.

 

Not that being 14 is an advantage necessarily -- just that it is now against the rules for athletes under 16 to compete.

 

Yes, since we can't prove they're underage, lets take the Chinese's word for it.

Good grief.

 

So how many Chinese male volunteers do you think they get to try to breed tiny gymnasts?

 

It's been talked about a little bit,

Here:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/selena_roberts/08/13/china.gymnasts/index.html?eref=T1

And here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/sports/olympics/27gymnasts.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

 

Thanks for those links. Good stuff. After reading the Times story, I'm leaning toward them not being 16.