Chinese Gymnastics Comment?

Question

Did anyone hear that one comment that Bela Caroli said about the Chinese gymnasts being underage? Then the anchor person sitting next to him looked like he was trying to stop him from saying anything else!

Answer 1

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 2

Good job Bela, calling out the fakes. It's not the fault of those little girls, I feel sorry for them as they have prepared and worked very hard. It's just unfair, all countries should be able to bring 12-year olds if they wanted too, not just the Chinese.

Looks like the Chinese would do anything and I don't like how little kids are being used (not to mention how they switched the singer girl with a "prettier" one in the opening ceremony, what a he__ was that???? Is that the message of the Olympics?)

Answer 3

usa are a sour losers .when losing they need to learn to  give some respect to the winners .they are not the only one that suppose to win medals.....

Answer 4

I do believe 2 or 3 of them are well under 16 and if they had followed the rules we would have faced a team with lower Difficulty Values and probably won the gold.

Still, I don't think its accurate to say the US has Juniors that are equal to the Chinese Olympians. We have some FANTASTIC juniors but their A scores are the same or lower than our Seniors, and with the excellent execution of the Chinese, it comes down to difficulty.

Our younger girls with the hardest difficulty don't have that textbook execution yet, because we don't train the way they do (THANK GOD) from the age of 3 in camps away from their familes.

Let's put it in perspective -- if it takes cheating and lost childhoods to win team gold, I'd rather have a silver any day.

Answer 5

they do look very young, and yes i did hear him say that. i also read that the chinese girl in the middle of this whole age controversy had a passport that said her birthday was Jan 1, 1992.......yeah, thats believeable.  

Answer 6

The anchor basically was trying to have Bela stop speaking negatively about the "party" because he may have to be brought to a "reprogramming" center hosted by the chinese government for people that don't understand that cheating is what they do best.

I'm glad that he was stopped otherwise who would coach USA's gymnastics team.