Are the Chinese gymnasts in the Olympics are really at least 16?

Question

They look SO young to me.

Answer 1

No way.

Answer 2

pshht most likely underage

chinese ppl tend to look young sometimes though

Answer 3

I am an American and I believe that we are in no place to judge.

http://twilit.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/g...  

Answer 4

Some Asians, especially Chinese, tend to look small and very young. I mean remember the little boy Yao Ming was holding at the opening ceremony, they said he was nine but he looked 5 !! I know the girls do look underaged, but sometimes you can't really tell with Chinese people [not tyring to be racist whatsoever]. And the Americans in their regular clothes look extra small too, especially Shawn Johnson. Dominiuqe Dawes said so herself about team USA. So its hard to tell. . .

Answer 5

i looked up deng linlin, the youngest looking one, and it said 4 foot 5, 68 lbs...how is that possible to be a 16 yr old?

Answer 6

well i don't think so!

Answer 7

those girls definetly don't look like they're 16. There have been past olympics where the chinese have lied about the ages of those girls. I do not think they are 16 or going to be 16 anytime soon.  

Answer 8

Some of them don't look older than my 12 year old sister.

But there was already that controversy about it, saying the government forged the documents with their birthdays.

Answer 9

You obviously never went to China...

Answer 10

Apparently all the athletes in Olympic game have past a Bone Age Test to prevent their cheat for their ages.

So nobody will take such a big risk to lie about their age. We should trust the International Olympic Committee.

By the way, Chinese really looks much younger and slimmer than youngsters in US or Europe as their adolescences are later.

Answer 11

16 what?  Months?

Answer 12

Of course they are.

The Chinese Communist Government says so.

The Chinese Communist Government NEVER lies.

Ummmmm .... some of them MIGHT be 13 ... later this year!

Answer 13

I am Asian and I've been to China. I know how Asian girls look like at 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. No, they are not 16.

Answer 14

I think they are underage. Their ages were reported to be 14 in China Daily, People's Daily, and Sina, all of which are government owned or run There is also evidence from an inner-city registration list and one of the gymnast's own coaches.

Americans are not saying this out of "poor sportsmanship". It was reported in the New York Times in July, before the Olympics started.

China has a history of age falsification in the Olympics. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics Chinese gymnast Yang Yun competed and won a bronze medal in the uneven bars. Yang's passport said she was born on December 24, 1984 and turning 16 in the year of the Games, making her eligible. She later confessed in a television interview that she was only 14 at the time of the competition and that she and her coaches had lied about her age.

If the girls really were 16 it could be proven using an MRI scan.

Answer 15

I don't think that they are, and it is very unfortunate that they might be lying, but my mom made a very good point last night. "If they're the best athletes in the world, they should compete in the olympics regardless of their age."  

Answer 16

shawn johnson looked a little underaged