Posted on 04/28/2010 1:34:37 PM PDT by jerry557
China was stripped of a team all-around bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics on Wednesday because it fielded an underage gymnast. Dong Fangxiao was discovered to be 14 at the time of those Games, two years younger than the minimum age requirement.
The medal will be given to the United States team which finished fourth in Sydney. The IOC has asked for China to return the medals "as soon as possible" so they can be reallocated to the U.S. team.
The action comes 20 months after China was accused of doctoring the ages of at least two of its gymnasts at the Beijing Games. Those allegations became a focal point of the 2008 Games but were quickly hushed up by the IOC after it cleared China following a sham investigation which basically consisted of the Olympic governing body asking China if they were really, really sure that the gymnasts were of age. When China said "yes" and produced passports and ID cards, the IOC dropped the matter, seemingly content to let the controversy pass and not risk offending its Olympic hosts.
Forget the fact that media reports and security experts found Chinese government documents which said 2008 team member He Kexin was 14 years old and not 16. Forget that asking China to produce documents proving its innocence would be like replacing drug tests with a simple questionaire in which athletes are asked whether they've ever doped or not. And, now, expect the IOC to forget that Dong had proper documentation at one point too, documentation which was clearly forged.
Dong was caught because somebody slipped up and printed a different birthdate on her credentials for Beijing.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Now if we also bust them for the 14 YO in the most recent gymnastics/ Olympics.
What a stupid sport where the younger you are, the better you perform. Twisted.
Isnt that true with most sports?
Look at the Red Sox. Old and slow and all the younger teams are beating them up this year.
Better be careful. China might demand the trillion dollars we owe it when they return the medal.
A 25YO Halfback is generally better than a 50YO half back ;) A 4'8 jockey is better than a 6'2 jockey
With gymnast its not about age its about height to power ratio (same with figure skaters) any sport that requires flipping and spinning is better quited to those who need less force to accomplish the tasks (short and lite people)...
Look at the Red Sox. Old and slow and all the younger teams are beating them up this year.
Don’t worry,you have the Orioles coming up this weekend.
Not 13 and 14 year olds being better than 20 and 21 year olds.. Baseball requires a combination of athleticism, stregnth and skill borne of experience. No 14 year old is going to compete competently with their elders in hockey, football, baseball, etc
Gymnastics requires contortions and suppleness over more "mature" competitive skills, IMO. Its like a circus act for stunted children. Bizarre.
Just a second! I wouldnt be counting no chickens quite yet. Its never a good idea to take for granted a team coming out of a big slump and playing at home :} (or is that just wishful thinking ?)
China still forces parents of children that show any athletic proimse as young as the ages of 4+ to be seized and become state property. The children are sent to live and train at camps sometimes thousands of miles away from the parents.
The parents are allowed one day a year to visit with their children.
The recent Beijing olympics was mainly a dog and pony show put on for its own people. This included having their best female gymnists no matter how young compete. The gold all-arounds for both the men and women were the medals they most coveted. It was gold or national discrace for the team directors and the communist government. Thus at least 2 of the 6 females were obvious children, one of them suspected of being 12-13 years old. She still had some of her teeth coming in, etc.... Chinese came back claiming, "due to their training, they develop their teeth slower, stay smaller, etc..." Total farce. The chinese tried to scrub all the data on these kids from all their published athletic sites, but cached records of some of their ages were found on internet servers proving their real ages. The IOC farted when presented with the facts.
The gutless IOC wasn't going to dare call out the Chinese on their blantant cheating at their own games. The same IOC that ignored the all the human rights promises China made to get the games, and then told the IOC to stick it.
Just a second! I wouldnt be counting no chickens quite yet. Its never a good idea to take for granted a team coming out of a big slump and playing at home :} (or is that just wishful thinking ?)
As a lifelong Orioles fan I can tell you that you will most certainly pick up three games in the win column this weekend.
The IOC has always been a crooked bunch. Thats nothing new. And they only punish cheating and corruption when it is impossible to hide or sweep under the rug.
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