Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Jeff — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:53:24 GMT

In the ancient games, when someone was caught cheating, they were fined (so many drakhma back then) and the money was used to erect a statue of the cheater in a prominent place at Olympia as a warning to others - sort of an ancient Olympic's "Hall of Shame". And many in the modern world think the ancients have nothing to teach us......

Future ages shall wonder at us as the present does now. - Perikles' Funeral Oration (431/0 BC)

And, yes....Perikles is spelled with a "k" (kappa).

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Sparkiy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:18:16 GMT

There is always the possibility that they are 16. I work with a lot of asian teens, and they are always 2 or 3 years older than I think they are. Some of them are absolutley tiny.

I'm actually more creeped out by the fact that so many of the girls look like weight lifters. What 16 year old girl has a neck that thick?

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Jessica — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:04:23 GMT

The 16 year old requirement is fairly new, within the last 15 years, and it was put in place in order to discourage teams from either putting little girls in this extraordinarily taxing and stressful competition or from trying to manipulate gymnasts' performance through strategic starvation or other means so that they could be as small and light as possible and thus able to do more difficult tricks (it's a lot harder to get a 100 lb body around the uneven bars than it is a 68 lb body, no?). I support age qualifications, but Bela Karolyi is right - they're unenforcable, especially when governments, FIG, and the IOC are all willing to turn a blind eye to (or take part in) obvious falsifications. That one gymnast is missing one of her baby teeth - you can see it when she's smiling on the medal stand!

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Bunny — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:55:43 GMT

I think I've said this here before, but it creeps me out that it's called "women's" gymnastics. I didn't see any women competing, did you? They're called "girls." Call 'em that.

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

RRE — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:04:01 GMT

YES there should be age qualifications...ever heard of the JR Olympics!

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Mamallama — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:25:02 GMT

These Chinese girls (and other countries too) have been taken from home at toddler age so competing and pressure is all they have ever known (not that that's right). Age restrictions wouldn't change that. But we'll never find out their true age....as Bela Karolyi said their passports and birth certificates are issued by the Chinese govt and they can do whatever they want. Their families aren't going to step up because their livelihoods rest on the child.

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

KMT — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:23:07 GMT

I'd disagree that it is fairly easy and quick to confirm their ages. Birth Certificates can be just as easily forged as passports. And its not that much of a stretch that if the passports were forged, that the Chinese government was in on it. So why wouldn't they fake the birth certificates?

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

another k — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:12:09 GMT

I agree with the above K. My cousin was slated to be on the 1980 gymnastics team, and when we boycotted the Olympics that year, she was more than crushed. Knowing she would be too old for the '84 Olympics, she became really depressed and spent years fooling around with drugs and guys.

She eventually regained her focus and went to and graduated from college, but her life had really fallen apart there for awhile. I could see how easily she could have just stayed depressed--after all, the dream she worked towards most of her life was taken from her, and she had nothing else--her whole life had been spent preparing for the Olympics.

re: Do All These Chinese Gymnasts Look 16 to You?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:45:17 GMT

Yes, you should spend your childhood working hard and pushing your physical and mental stress levels for a skill that you will be burnt out from before you reach the age of majority.

When you spend your childhood focusing on a dead-end sport career like this one, what do you do with the rest of your life?