The Chinese Gymnasts: Age Questions Remain

They twirled and tumbled and soared, their lean, lithe bodies slicing the air like tiny blades. In the end, China’s women’s gymnastics team prevailed in the team final, capturing the gold, with the Americans taking silver and the Romanians rounding it out with a bronze. But even as the Chinese team’s doll-like faces broke out into giant smiles, a question mark hung over the mats at the National Indoor Stadium. Last month, when China finally named its Olympic squad, legendary gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi complained that some of China’s gymnasts were “obviously kids… and you’re telling the world they are 16? What arrogance!” Were three of the six Chinese women on the stand actually too young to be competing?

Under Olympic regulations, female gymnasts must turn 16 years old during the year of competition. According to their passports, which determine Olympic eligibility, He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin are all 16. But Chinese online records and local newspaper articles have presented different information, raising questions about these three gynmasts’ true ages.   I know you have seen some olympic stuff, these gymnasts don’t look 16 at all. One of them reminds me of my room mate’s little cousin! Read more… 

This entry was posted on August 15, 2008 at 8:03 am and is filed under Sports, TIMES and more. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.