But they shouldn’t be missing their premolars at age 16.
It’s a preponderance of evidence. All the stories with the different ages. The looks. The missing teeth. The size. They also seem to act a little more juvenile, like a bunch of little kids. I noticed it while watching them at the medal ceremony.
And unfortunately, the disposition of the Chinese to think the ends justifies the means. There have been more doping scandals among the Chinese recently than any other nation.
I was reading an interesting article last night. I remember the East Germans, who like the Chinese made winning a state affair. All those young women are now sick and dying from all the hormones they were given. After practise they would all line up, and their coaches would give them “vitamins” from, I think, the Stassi. Do you know where many of those coaches went? China hired a lot of them.
I’ll say something else, which is just supposition on my part. OK, so Chinese may be naturally smaller. But these girls supposedly get the best, taken from parents and fed on the state programs. So they should be taller and healthier, right?
So how come they look almost anorexic to me? You can see the bones of their skull. I remember reading a story about a young american gymnast obsessed with diet. I’ll bet anything these girls are undernourished to make them small and light. After all, they have no parents there. They have to eat what they are told.
I saw an article about a Chinese shooter who only got bronze. He was actually berated by the interviewer. He “disgraced his nation”. I have no doubt the coaches know what is expected of them. Gold. Period.
“I’ll say something else, which is just supposition on my part. OK, so Chinese may be naturally smaller. But these girls supposedly get the best, taken from parents and fed on the state programs. So they should be taller and healthier, right?”
Not necessarily. What you have in China is over 1 Billion people, with a state apparatus designed to find “oddballs” to fit into a range of sports niches. If they need to find peculiarly small girls for “womens” gymnastics, considering that these 1 Billion run small anyway, they just naturally have a much larger selection within that class of physique that will have the appropriate talents than does the US.
I don’t disagree that they could be cheating on this matter, its just that the size differentials are not dispositive.
And for that matter there are cultural differences/training that go into affect/behavior. I come from Asia myself, and it was a bit disconcerting to find US teenage girls appearing to be 25 years old, not just in size but in presence.