Posted on 08/14/2008 9:10:19 PM PDT by robertvance
We should not be surprised to hear that three of China’s women gymnasts are not actually old enough to be participating in the 2008 Olympics. After all, the Chinese are good at cheating and they will tell you so unabashedly. Some months ago, I wrote an article entitled Cheating in China — It's an Epidemic in which I explained how cheating is viewed as a way to survive in China. I have had dozens of Chinese students and adults alike tell me that they have cheated often and that they will cheat again if it means that they could 'get ahead' in life. Quite simply, cheating is a part of the culture here and this fact has been confirmed by many of my Chinese students and friends...
(Excerpt) Read more at teachabroadchina.com ...
Another thing is that younger kids are more flexible, and smaller with a lower center of gravity, advantages when doing somersaults on the balance beam and tumbling on floor exercises and some other moves.
And experience is probably not that much of a factor for kids who started training around four or five. If they’re 12,14, 16 or 18, they’ve still had eight or more years of training and several years experience in competition, plenty of time for the talented ones to learn some competitive routines.
I know a seminary professor who a couple times a year flies to Ukraine to teach seminary classes to pastors there.
He has to be very careful during exams, as the students routinely and openly compare each others’ answers, openly discussing things during the tests....unless he lays down the law, and keeps them separated.
They explain that “We from socialist country and we cooperate for to give answers!” The whole concept of cheating as bad is almost entirely absent—and this is among PASTORS!
well look at the chinese swimmer Liu Zige who beat the aussie Jessicah Schipper yesterday...
1 year ago the chinese winner was 22nd in the world..yesterday wins and cuts nearly 4 seconds off the world record...and she cut nearly 12 seconds off her own personal best...IN A YEAR
uh huh...
short of having an outboard motor (which from memory is illegal), this is just simply not physically possible...unless of course you have some assistance.
what was amazing and shows the good grace was the aussie girl went up and shook her hand...i guess she has honour and code...
” Doesn’t experience and a more mature body give the woman an advantage.”
In gymnastics? no.
And I speak from experience.
As an 11 yr. old I loved the uneven bars - they seemed easy to me. I was beating the older girls.
When I was 17 and 18 I hated the bars and was getting pounded by the 11 yr. olds.
That is gymnastics.
However - girls do tend to get better at vaulting as they get older - as long as they don’t get to be extremely tall.
Stop your griping the girl is 16, here’s the proof.
It’s indisputable..
http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6135/bobirthcertificate20chiyd2.jpg
whooo hooo!
They tried to cheat our girls all night, and USA hung tough!
I’m dying to know why Nelli Kim was so pi$$ed!
She kept stomping over to that same judge.
Does anyone have any info on this judge? Or why Nelli was in a snit?
The US team was favored in the team competition but they were absolutely dreadful. In today's individual all around, they performed the same routines only they actually performed up to expectations and won gold and silver.
Also bolstering your argument is that the best Chinese gymnast in the team finals was a verified 20 year old.
“Yes!!! The judges have been hacking the US scores in every gymnastics event so far, but great to see the US girls were able to persevere against the cheating Chinese.”
I agree, but remember that the Chinese athletes have no say in the matter. They haven’t since age three. I fell no bitterness toward them, but rather toward their chicom masters. I actually have some sympathy for the biased judges, too, because they know the misery that will be visited upon these children and their families if the athletes don’t win gold at something.
That said, GO USA! Nastia ans Shawn deserved their medals by being so far superior that even the corrupt system couldn’t take it away from them. All I have to say about that is WOW, just WOW.
Don’t know if anyone checked up on this, but in China, one is considered already one year old on the day of birth. Are they counting ages based on that paradigm or on the western one?
“a more mature body give the woman an advantage”
No, it doesn’t.
for both sexes, you get stronger and have better technique as you get older, but lose flexibility and enthusiasm, and that seems to be true in all sports.
In today’s all around, you got to see superior technique and strength by the US women beat the flexibility and carefree attitude of the Chinese.
In Tues. team finals, what you saw was the US team act like choking dogs and there is no other way to put it.
Sometimes, you hate to see someone lose. This year Federer/Nadal at Wimbledon and Tiger/Rocco at the US open come to mind.
In the team finals on Tues., I am not sure I want either team to get the gold. The US performances were terrible and if the Chinese have underage performers, I would not want them to win either.
Agreed. The pedeophilic undertones are hard to bear. That said, I watched most of the competitions because I wanted to see the products of a free nation (our athletes and their coaches, both of whom have naturalized from slave-state communist nations) succeed. And they did.
“The US team was favored in the team competition but they were absolutely dreadful.”
Absolutely?
no - I don’t agree there..
We had one girl make 2 big mistakes. But then again - the Chinese made mistakes too.
“In today’s individual all around, they performed the same routines only they actually performed up to expectations and won gold and silver.”
Nastia performed better - especially on her landings.
Notice how the scores didn’t reflect that very well?
Shawn performed about the same on bars and vault, a little worse on beam, and much better on floor.
“Also bolstering your argument is that the best Chinese gymnast in the team finals was a verified 20 year old.”
The “best”??....no - don’t agree there either.
She was not part of the bars lineup that put China ahead by over a point.
She was not one of the all arounders competing tonight.
I would think that the older, bigger, and stronger physically a girl gets in gymnastics, it could produce some negative consequences also. Two or three of our girls’ performances on the mat ended with them stepping out of bounds. They build up so much speed and being bigger, momentum, that it seems they could much more easily go out of bounds. A smaller, younger, feather-lite little Chinese girl would have to work very hard to go out of bounds. That is just one thing that I noticed.
YOU WOO FLUNG DUNG
“for both sexes, you get stronger and have better technique as you get older, but lose flexibility and enthusiasm, and that seems to be true in all sports.”
You are talking to someone who lived and breathed this for many years - and I’m telling you it is different in gymnastics.
I was once the 11 yr. old kid swinging bars and beating much older girls.
Then I became an older girl who hated bars and was getting my a$$ handed to me by the little tykes.
Everyone who has participated in the sport knows this.
“In today’s all around, you got to see superior technique and strength by the US women beat the flexibility and carefree attitude of the Chinese.”
What you saw tonight was a different format where 2 top gymnasts from each team HAD to perform on all four events.
The team competition format favored the Chinese because they put underage tiny girls up on bars.
That is the event that blew everyone away.
They put their older girl up on the other events, because often it does not pay to be little on vaulting and tumbling.
The little ones do not dance as well either.
Our girls are better all-arounders.
“In Tues. team finals, what you saw was the US team act like choking dogs and there is no other way to put it.”
You saw one girl make 2 mistakes. The Chinese also made mistakes.
You also saw screwy scoring - and there was screwy scoring again tonight - but our girls hung tough, and something was up with the head judge (Nelli Kim)
Can’t wait to see if that story manages to leak out somehow.
Yup, not much else to say but “I agree.”
Actually have been wondering if the chicoms made the mats on the floor exercise a little “bouncier” in order to help out their “feather-lite” athletes. Would explain some of the out-of-bounds mistakes that happened in the team comp, and then the Americans adjusted to clinch gold and silver in the later individuals (which if true is just frankly unfreaking amazing).
The Chinese man who gave the class told us point blank that deception is part of the culture and that the Chinese thought Americans were strange because we were so forthright and open.
Me too. Clearly something was going on, just couldn't figure out what. Would be nice to find out, but we probably will never be informed what was happening.
When I took an international relations course in college they told us it is very difficult for women to conduct business in China as it was common to drink heavily and go to strip bars after the business meetings.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
