“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.
I understand what you say when you mention they may just be smaller. But look at how spindly they are. There is not a drop of fat on them. Of course you can’t expect pro athletes to be fat, but just look at them. It just doesn’t look right to me. Look at the bones of their heads.
Now being in a state program from the time they are babies, you know they don’t make up their own diets. I just have the feeling they are on a very regimented diet, and the calories are purposefully not quite enough.