Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Did China cheated by using underage female gymnasts? I think the answer is a definite "yes". Some of those girls look a lot younger than 16. China has changed the age of athlete frequently in the past. But usually it is to decrease the age of men basketball players so they can play in junior world championships. International governing bodies tend to look the other way so as to not offend China and not spend a lot resources policing something that is difficult to police. Of course nobody cares about the junior world championship of basketball because the U.S. doesn't care about it. But the U.S. cares about Olympic gymnastics and so the IOC is under pressure to investigate. The thing is some of the rules of sports that have been put in is a way for western nations to cheat in the first place. More on that later.

This rule about 16 years old being the minimal was put in supposedly for 2 reasons. The first is that younger bodies tend to get injured more. This is nonsense. If competing at 14 leads to more injury, then why do they still have national and world junior championships? They are doing the same exercise in the juniors as they do at the Olympics. Wouldn't the younger girl get injured at the junior competition the same way as in the seniors? Usually the older you get the greater chance for injury. But they don't have an upper age limit, do they?

The second argument for the rule is that younger girls have an advantage because they are more flexible and have less fear. Again this is a stupid argument. Wouldn't an older girl have more strength to compensate for the difference in flexibility? And in what other sport is it a psychological advantage to have less experience. Sure an older person may not jump off a roof because of fear but if you are a world class gymnast why would you have more fear about your exercises the longer you have practiced it?

Is there anyone who would argue that Shawn Johnson was a better gymnast when she was 14 than she is now? If you answer yes, then why don't we just crown the junior national champion the national champion. Same with the junior world champion. It is a nonsense arguement that the younger girls won because they are younger. Shawn Johnson today would beat Shawn Johnson at 14. Same with Nastia Liukin.

The real reason this rule and the rule for women figure skating is that the western countries know that Asians tend to reach full maturity at a younger age. That is why Asians dominate the Little League World Series but not in the major leagues. The figure skating rule was put in place after the Asian girls started arriving on the scene. It prevented the Japanese champion from competing in the last winter Olympics.

As mentioned above there are more rules that are aimed at decreasing the success of Asians. Table tennis still awards 4 gold medals but instead of men and women doubles as in the past, there are instead men and women teams competition. China can possibly sweep the doubles but in team competiton it can only send one male and one female team. In weight lifting each country is now only allowed 4 competitors for each sex. In the women competition all four Chinese women won gold. But at home they have world champions who can win in the other weight class but can't come due to the 4 competitors rule. The men won 3 gold and 1 silver and certainly could have won couple more medals. This rule was never considered when the Europeans dominated the sport. Would they ever tell the U.S. that it can only enter in say 6 swimming events?

When India and Pakistan dominated field hockey, the Europeans and Australia got together and changed the playing surface to artificial turf, knowing full well that India and Pakistan did not have artificial turf. The rules for citizenships are liberal because they know that few people would go from Europe and North America to compete for an African or Asian country. That's why Chris Kaman can play for Germany, Bernad Lagat can run for the U.S. even though he had run for Kenya in the past. And how about the former athletes from Jamaica and the Bahamas participating under the British flag. One of the nice story from gymnastic was this 33 year old woman representing Germany who won a silver in the vault. She had represented the USSR a couple of times before. Shouldn't we have a maximum age limit or a change of country rule that would have prevented her from winning that silver? I bet if Kobe Bryant gets a Chinese passport and plays for China, the rule for changing countries would be changed immediately.

So yes, China cheats. But the western nations cheat by changing the rules to their advantage. They can do it because of money and they run most of the different sports organizations.