IOC To Launch Probe Into Chinese Olympic Gymnastics Team
And might I add, it's about time, although it sounds pretty anemic. "Launching a probe"? Sounds like a medical procedure. Maybe they need a headoutofbuttectomy.
The International Olympic Committee, that bastion of all things Olympic, has finally decided that perhaps it was time to stop taking China's word for everything and try to figure out what is really going on in women's gymnastics:
An IOC official told The Times that because of "discrepancies" that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals.The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed yesterday to have uncovered Chinese government documents that he says prove she is only 14 - making her ineligible to compete in the Olympics - rather than 16, as officials in Beijing insist is her age.
Mike Walker, a computer security expert, told The Times how he tracked down two documents that he says had been removed from a Chinese government website. The documents, he said, stated that He’s birth date was January 1 1994 - making her 14 - and not January 1 1992, which is printed in her passport. [...]
[...] The ages of two other team members have also aroused suspicion: Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin. Time magazine reported that government records, that have since disappeared, showed both girls to be 14. Gymnasts must be 16 to compete.
The controversy has been swirling aroud even before the games began, giving the IOC and FIG plenty of time to act before the first competitor took to the apparatus; however, blind eyes were turned, as Dawn has said, presumably to avoid offending the host country of China. Because, after all, people will let you break the rules if you totally have a tantrum if you get caught.
And despite what anyone wants to claim, the documents that were found were posted on a state-run website, by the General Administration Of Sport Of China, not on some rinky-dink page by a pimply-faced geek:
The man who uncovered the allegations about the underage athlete told The Times that he was not even a sports a fan, but decided to investigate the issue to determine if Chinese authorities were lying. He eventually discovered that two Excel spreadsheets on the Chinese government’s official sports website - www.sport.gov.cn - that mentioned her name had recently being removed. Continued on the next page
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