China's felmale gymnasts drive me nuts!

LOL- just think how many they could eat if they were IM training!

The NBC commentators last night mentioned the IOC had "verified" that they are 16.  But how?  This country is specialized in faking things and in this case the faking is backed up by the gov't. 

hee hee.  nice. 

yup, if the govt produces passports or documentation saying they are 16, what can the IOC do?  It's unfortunate but that's the way it is. 

Yes very annoying.  I am glad I live in the U.S. coz I can't shut up about this stuffs. I still follow Hong Kong (where I grew up) news very closely.  You have no idea how many times HK people had busted the Mainland Chinese - not necessarily involving the gov't - for faking this and cheating on that. 

I have mixed emotion about this whole thing.  I like to see my country winning, but winning in such a way bothers me big times.  I am not at all surprised about the fake fireworks and lip-syncing at the opening.  But flat out lying and insisting on that lies are truth to get gold is another level of low. 

Exactly. What are they supposed to do? Cut off their legs and count the rings? Cause I don't think there's a blood test for age.

I think they're still losing their baby teeth.  Seriously.

Andi

I 've see Korean and Japanese gymnasts on TV and live before, they looked their age.  The Chinese girls have no  indication of any hips or breast development that comes naturally with a puberty.  My  opinion on the matter is they are ether on developement delay supplements (beleive me it exists) or they are definitely very young.

I'd say both restricted diet/supplements and age adjustment.  I was over 5 ft and over 100 lb by the age of 12. 

Although I still say they have good skill. 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/08/14/underage.gymnasts/index.html?cnn=yes

It's pretty obviously they many of them are under 16.  This is not the first thing China has lied about.

Oh, skills are definitely there! 

I'm not sure I buy that. I'm sure they have a closely-monitored diet, but the fact that they train hard for hours every day would indicate that they probably actually eat a lot. If they didn't, they wouldn't be able to train, much less compete at the level they do.

No way those girs are malnourished.

Rumors has it that the GENERAL CHINESE POPULATION is also questioning the real age of the girls.  According to "documents" they are all born on Jan 1 or Oct 1.  Oct 1 being the National day of Mainland China. 

They take the girls away from their families at age 3.  They can visit their parents once a year. They train the girls to such a degree that they don't mature properly. And this is for the girls that do well.

This is all in the name of winning Olympic gold medals. The NBC commentators were saying that one girl got to see the house the government gave her family for the first time last month. I think she fell off the apparatus that night.  I wonder if they still live in that house.

Just to keep things in perspective, the idea of young gymnasts suffering their training isn't exclusive to China.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/sections/news/news/article_346130.php