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Age Issues with Chinese Gymnasts
Wed, 08/13/2008 - 9:03am — erinhogan
The United States women’s gymnastics team lost to the Chinese team last night in an up and down battle of who had more difficulty and who had more falls. The Americans came out on the losing end. Fine. They made plenty of mistakes to justify their silver medal. But what isn’t fine is that there’s no way the playing field was even. China was clearly competing with girls, not women. The rule is set that gymnasts must be 16-years-old to compete. The difference between an 11-year-old and a 16-year-old is drastic. Maturity, hips, zits, and, most importantly, a strength to weight ratio that enables a lightweight 11-year-old to fly through the air and a 16-year-old whose already gone through puberty to fight for every movement.
They say the passports check out but if Jason Bourne can make 18 different passports to be 18 different people, I’m sure a government that shoots dust into clouds to prevent rain can doctor a little passport here and there. In my opinion, more investigation needs to be done and the Chinese should be put in their place for passing kids off for women.
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Comments
Personally I don’t
Personally I don’t think there should be an age limit, the first perfect 10 was by someone under 16 and is still considered a great accomplishment, but it is unfair that other countries have to abide by an age limit when others seem to be able to get around it. For those who say there’s no evidence but looking at them, how about the numerous official CHINESE website and news media that list their ages at 14. Would it have made a difference? Probably not but that’s not the point, the point is they were playing by different rules than the rest of the field. Id be more upset that the point where it started to go wrong for the USA is when Alicia Sacramone was called to the beam, she was made to wait 15min before being allowed to do her routine. When your competing at that level you have a routine you go through before you start, and when anything interrupts that, it can throw you off. While you can say that she should be good enough to overcome an interruption like that, which she should have, the fact is she shouldn’t have had to. Call her when its time for her to go, if the judges aren’t ready don’t tell the gymnast that they are!