What is the deal with the age controversy with Chinese gymnasts in the Olympics?

Question

Those girls do not look 16. The announcers said something about an age controversy, but I didn't hear what the problem was. What is going on?

Answer 1

you have to be over 16 to be in olipicts

under u will be in juinor olymipics

there saying the trainer gave false registration for there age

Answer 2

Younger age in womens gymnastics is a big deal because the younger bodies are more flexible and have better balance. That is why there is a minimum age requirement.

Answer 3

the chinese are underaged. but they won with their talents. the us gymnasts lost because of their mistakes

Answer 4

well the minimum age limit is 16 and some of the chinese women gymnasts look younger than that. they do have the documentation but they could be fake documents given by the chinese government. the sad thing is the IOC wont investigate this. i think some of them are younger than 16 and china is in fact cheating.

it doesnt matter if the US won or not the fact is that some of the Chinese gymnasts shouldnt even be competing yet. i think the US doesnt deserve gold either, but at least they played by the rules. the chinese gymnasts are talented, but should not be competing yet.

people say they just look young but one of them has a baby tooth missing and facial experts say that their face arent developed yet.  you have to be blind if you serious think that they are at least 16.

Answer 5

I think he said it's something to do with their calendar. CHINA won't let the girls compete, supposedly. YET, the announcer said some of the girl's may be as young as 12! US lets girls compete at 15 and I think 14, even. But you're right, they def aren't all 16 and older.

Answer 6

the rule of age 16, was originally set against China. check the history of Olympic rule. the rationale behind the rule is that if no such rule, no other country will get the gold medal. same thing happened in table tennis.....

it seems western country always focus on changing the 'rule' to put themselves in the better position in the competition, rather than focusing on how to provide better trainings to their athletes to fit the rule.

We are expecting more rules to be changed.

Answer 7

they faked passport ages.

they faked fireworks

they faked voices and faces

who knows what else.

Answer 8

i think last olympics the chinese had girls that we much younger then 16. more like 14. there is 1 girl that stands out to me on the gymnastics team that looks maybe 13. but i think its crazy. they showed a segment during the routines showing 3 year olds in class learning how to bend and be flexable and they were like being pushed down by an adult. it just looked really disturbing to me!!

Answer 9

It is felt that they are underage, but i did not think there was a bottom limit to getting into the Olympics

Answer 10

and nine months before the games there was somewhere were one of them was 13 or 12

im from the US

i think china did better but they did cheat because there of those girls are under 16

and their birth things are 1994 for 2 of them  

Answer 11

They have to be at least 16 to compete in the olympics. Those girls looked like they were 12 so they're trying to find the true age. If they're able to find out the Chinese will be disqualified and the Americans awarded the gold.

Answer 12

These girls definitely are under the age limit to compete.  The Chinese government has a rule that everyone has to be "essential" to the success of the country. Children are sent away to "sports factories" by their parents in order to learn diving, swimming, gymnastics, tennis and other sports. If not, they are sent to military schools to join the Red People's Army.

At the "sports factories", they live the sport they are "forced" to excel at and nothing else matters until they are released back to their parents, which is only when they "retire" from that sport to become a baby breeding machine after marriage.

Americans, on the other hand, have lives, can freely go to the mall or visit their friends, can say bad things about the government without fear of reprisals, do not get punished if they make mistakes while performing, don't eat dogs, can grow up doing whatever they want to do, visit the gym whenever they want, can leave the gym to go home to their parents, do not get kidnapped and brought to "reprogramming" centers, are more creative in gymnastics and don't need to cheat by having a communist country's government strong arm the judges by intentionally having them delay results while other athletes are awaiting their start time and falsifying birth documents

Answer 13

It's widely believed (but unproven) that the Chinese "women" gymnasts are underage.  According to the rules, an Olympic gymnast must be age 16 or older IN THE YEAR of the Games.  Which means that a gymnast CAN be age 15 if she will turn 16 later this year.

The issue is one of eligibility.  If the Chinese gymnasts are, in fact, underage ... then they were ineligible to participate, and their medals should be taken away EVEN THOUGH their performance was clearly superior.

I don't actually know what (if anything) is being done about the so-called "controversy" ... I agree with you (and most others) that at least 2 of those (*ahem ... koff*) "women" can't be older than 12 or 13.

We'll probably never know for sure what those girls' true ages are.  

Answer 14

if you find some photos on sports illustrated website, there are photos of the Chinese gymnasts with missing baby teeth. NO 16 YEAR OLDER HAS TEETH MISSING. You can also see some videos on yahoo sports on how the dimensions of their faces are totally unlike a 16 year old girl. Some girls on the Chinese team have undeveloped ears and their chins are tiny and "baby sized."

The press should release these girls passports, with the proof they said they have. These girls look nothing near 16 years of age.

Answer 15

Rules are rules.

Other countries were required to present athletes that were at least 16 years of age.

I can't believe there are people who believe that these girls could be 16. Even considering malnutrition in China, NO 16 year old girl is that small.

And I can't believe that there are people who think that it shouldn't matter if they cheat.

If the Americans had done it, the world would be chanting: "Death to America!"

But that's what I love about my country, we WOULDN'T do it.

Answer 16

i heard they were entered as different ages in differnt competitions. i think theyre cheating. china is so image obsessed they already faked fireworks and a lyp syncing scam because the good singer wasn't "cute enough".

Answer 17

Previous competition info and press statements have listed some girls on the Chinese gymnastic team as being 14 years old. China now says they are 16 and gave them (fake) passports 'proving' they are 16, so the Olympic officials won't do anything about it now until someone files a complaint. The minimum age to compete for female gymnasts is 16 so the girls if underage shouldn't be there and if they compete should be disqualified.

China has done this before- in 2000 olympics they had a girl (Yang Yun) who was only 14 and she admitted it later but nothing was done about that either.  

Answer 18

gymnasts are pushed to slow down their hormones... basically so they don't get their period. it is possible! while the chinese may look young, its because of how much they're pushed so they don't get their period. once they get their period - they're useless!! they put on weight and get b***s! i do agree that they look a little too young but until i see proof that they really are younger than olympic age, i'll put my head in the sand

Answer 19

Here is the thing. Some gymnasts are annorexic. Which causes your hormones to stop, and you to not get periods and never reach puberty. SO you could be 16 or 18 or older and still look 12. SERIOUSLY. Its terrible. And china well probably does not feel as strongly about annorexia as americans do. I am guessing that. But chinese girls are build smaller. I do not see a problem if they are 16. I think maybe america is just sore. I am born in the USA btw! <3 Yay America!

Answer 20

I think they are underage. Their ages were reported to be 14 in two separate government owned news agencies, 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.

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.

Answer 21

The rule is that they are supposed to be 16 (or turn 16 in the Olympic

year)   The USA or other countries may have better gymnasts that

are younger, but they follow the rules and do not send them to the

Olympics.  China is accused of forging documents to show false

ages on some of their gymnasts.  THe age of 16 was chosen

because it is supposed to bad physically for those very young girls

to train that hard.

Answer 22

all the U.S announcers say that they dont look 16 but they know that asian woman are known for been petite. if the U.S womans gymnastics team would have won gold it wouldn't matter but since they didn't they are going to talk about it for the duration of the 2008 Olympics  

Answer 23

omggg yeah i know what yer talking about.

i'm not actually sure if they're cheating or not.

you'd think that the olympics this year in their area

are so important to them, but i guess like others said

with the "lip syncing" scam i guess they're just obssesed to win.

i think america has called china on their mistake with the soon

to be called "age scam" but i don't think any other countries have either. i also think everyone is feeling the same way about this

issue, but nobody is doing anything about it;

it just matters that those gymnists are actually amazing at what they do.

Answer 24

People are mad that the Chinese supposedly used under aged girls to give them an advantage.  I don't think they used under aged girls. I'm 19 and people say I'm 15. Gymnasts look younger and Asians generally look younger. We're being sore losers.  

Answer 25

Both Yang and Jiang — and their teammate He Kexin — have been at the center of age falsification questions leading up to this Olympics. Some Chinese sports registration lists have shown that those gymnasts may not be old enough to compete at the Games. I do feel IOC did not look into this situation as thoroughly as they should have.

Edit: I just saw a report on Fox News that says the Chinese newspaper which is govt. regulated has article that they have documents that show one of the girls was 13 last year so she is 14 now. Since this is from a Chinese journalist in their own newspaper it will be interesting to see what happens now.

Answer 26

Two of the three female Chinese gymnasts are underage - 14 and 15, while the minimum age is 16. However, they get their passes to the gymnastics by the Chinese govt. because the games are being held in their nation. They weren't going to hold back their highest level gymnasts just because of an age regulation. They play by their own rules.

Answer 27

The gymnasts are supposed to be  at  least 16 years of age and the Chinese girls are obviously not.

Answer 28

The Karolyis (US Coaches) think that they are under 16.  China says that they are 16.

Competitors must be 16 to be in Olympics.  Bella thinks the Chinese are cheating.

I do not.  I don't think the Chinese would mess with something as important as their Gymnastics medals.

Answer 29

The rules state that you have to be 16 to enter the Olympics as a gymnast.  Karoyli felt the Chinese girls were too young.

Answer 30

Bella Karolyi accused the Chinese Gymnastics program of using girls who were under age (under 16, that is) for their Olympic Team.  As you noted, those girls do not look 16--they don't even look like they could be in high school.  So the controversy is that while they have been accused of foul play, apparently the Chinese have been able to come up with documentation (in the form of passports) that the Chinese gymnasts are of legal age.

Answer 31

The controversy arose from some newspaper claiming that the chinese gymnasts were underage.  

They might be underage, but really, everyone is just making excuses.  Ok, so they won gold, are you going to say they were too young.  That just makes your team look worse because you ended up losing to kids.  I think everyone should just drop it.  No one is being hurt from this and its not like other countries are completely clean as well.  Plus, I don't think there has been any hard proof evidence yet.

Also...it was weird.  I was watching it tonight and it said some european girl was 15.