He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan (admittedly from last November). And an article.
Hmmm… maybe they bind their hips, like Japanese women who used to have their feet bound.
5, 8.
There’s a “Who’s on first?” routine there, isn’t there?
…“OMG look at that Chinese gymnast! There’s no way she’s 16, the dirty cheats. Who is she?”
“He”
"What? They’re sneaking a boy onto the women’s team? :eek: "…
“Who?”
“Oh, that’s a diver.”
“Oh is a diver?”
“No, Oh is a sprinter. Hu is a diver.”
“He is?”
“No, He is a gymnast.”
I suppose. So far the fraud is neither confirmed nor massive, and even if it is proven I see no reason to attribute it to communism. Every country has cheaters.
That’s it. Oddly enough I learned it from the novel War of the Roses by Warren Adler. Barbara Rose used to be a gymnast but had to quit when she became too tall. She explains it as being like a long pendulum versus a short pendulum. One can go through a full circle much faster than the other. Thus no tall gymnasts.
There is a big difference between an individual athlete cheating and a government cheating. The Chinese government itself is falsifying documents to cheat in the Olympics.
Having said that, the age limit is ridiculous and I hope the cheating causes it to be eliminated. It is an arbitrary and unfair rule. If they want to have older girls compete, then they should change the competition to favor the skill set that an older girl would have.
I almost want to support the cheating just in protest of the rule.
Right, I’ll just think it’s a coincidence that the Chinese teams on average make all the other teams look like 96 pound weaklings in terms of musculature, with a few exceptions (especially in the case of female gymnasts where most of them are mysteriously built exactly like a kid). The difference is particularly striking when you compare them to, say, Japan.
IMO, with this much collaborating evidence, any honorable nation would investigate the discrepancies between passports and other documents. We probably can assume that China was complicit in generating the passport with the wrong age.
They are using the Olympics to show us that they’re a force to be reckoned with and a nation to be respected; I don’t know about the world, but so far, they’ve shown me they can’t be trusted.
Well, I’m not an anatomist, nor a doctor, but as a professional sculptor who has to know anatomy, those two from your pics are at a minimum 12-13, and I suspect that they are probably 14 -16.
First off, look at the hands. Even after extensive training, one cannot alter the length and proportion of children’s hands to that of a teen/adult through training. Both of those young ladies have proper adult measurements in that respect. Both of them demonstrate a teen/adult length of torso, though they are quite slim in the curves department. Despite the lack of body fat, both have a pubic mound, not found in children, only in pubescent or adult women. They both have small breasts, or at minimum the proper shape of the organ above the pectoral muscle. The muscle development seems consistent with a teen.
Facially, we have a different, but difficult assessment. Asians can be difficult to judge as they often do not develop secondary characteristics in the bone structure in the same manner as Europeans. Both men and women can often look younger, far longer, than Caucasian, or African counterparts. What bothers me is the small chins, and proportionally large ears on both of those gymnasts. That is typical of younger, rather than older teens. However, given the diminutive stature of these young ladies, it is not a stretch to imagine that they might well carry over that look into adulthood.
Overall I think that they probably are cheating, but not by as much as some would like to think.
The problem is these girls are having their childhoods taken away. To be in high competition at 12 means they have been training exclusively for several years. Yet a chinese kid selected for olympic training may help make her family more comfortable.
Bela Koroly training the American team does a similar thing with our kids. They are under huge pressure and are taken from their families for years.But to compete in the olympics ,we make sure they are legal.
PS Why not midgets?
It’s not just about size, but body structure as well.
Is there a way to tell their age by any reliable means? Would an x ray reveal that bone growth is still happening which generally stops before age 16? My guess is that one cannot conclusively prove anyone’s actual age within two years.
I feel sorry for the girls. Whether or not the government lied about their age or not doesn’t discount the training they’ve endured and the pressure they’re under to perform for their country.
Hmmm. This seems intriguing. The epiphsyeal plates are thought to seal off in girls within one year of menarche (if my pediatrician and nursing college are to be believed. Oddly, I cannot find a quick site for this).
I did find this one site hardtrainingdelaysmenarche which says that for every year of hard training, menarche is pushed back 5 months. Menarche is traditionally thought of as the start of puberty for girls, but my knowledge may be outdated on that front.
I found Acid Lamp’s contribution fascinating. Could you look at a hand (isolated from the body) and estimate the age of someone within say, 5 years?
PunditLisa–that was said about the Soviet Union girls as well, back in the day. I am of two minds about it: the training etc might have given these girls a chance at a much better life than going without it, but I have to wonder what happens after these girls have outgrown their usefulness to the government. But then again, how many washed up NFL players etc went for the early draft choice, skipped out of the rest of college and find themselves disabled at say, age 27 or so? It’s not just China that treats people as commodities.
I’ll have to check Dead Men Do Tell Tales when I get home and see if Dr. Maples (Forensic Anthropologist, dec.) discusses this. I think that it can be reliably determined by bone structure/tooth growth that a person is under the age of puberty, but precise age is more difficult if not impossible in younger persons.
Edited to add:
Wasn’t it a result of the Soviet Union’s policies with regard to their female gymnasts that caused the age restriction to be established in the first place? Or am I misremembering that?
Chinese, not Japanese. Here’s an interesting article I just googled about foot-binding, which explains some of the reasons why people did it besides the usual theory of keeping women subservient.
http://bosp.kcc.hawaii.edu/Horizons/horizons_1999/footbinding2.html
I must agree with this. Having worked with thousands of Asians over the years in the college system, I must say that I’ve met quite a few, especially women, who appeared much younger than they actually were. This was certainly the case with Vietnamese women in particular.
YMMV.
Probably. I don’t remember.
Although they stipulated an age requirement for figure skating, too, and that sport allows for more varied body types.
My eight year old daughter is a gymnast - she is a not very good (frankly sort of lousy - her cartwheels aren’t even straight) recreational gymnast. But her lessons are at a competitive gym.
Even the marginally good girls give up their lives - some of these girls - the top two at the gym - MIGHT qualify for college scholarships. I don’t think any of them will qualify for the Olympics (you never know). There are seven year olds spending four hours a night five nights a week in the gym - they are much more talented than my own daughter (who is in gymnastics to give her body awareness and balance - she’s one of those ‘trip over her own feet’ people - a balance beam is a good way to learn to walk without tripping) - but “twenty hours a week in the gym for a seven year old” sort of talented?
Some of them quit when they get enough - possibly not an option for Chinese gymnasts. But some of their parents end up convincing themselves that this is their kid’s ticket to college that they won’t let them quit - having sunk the college fund into getting them a gymnastics scholarship - those girls are as tied to that gym as a Chinese gymnast is.