Didn't I say it was suspcious? If a Chinese expert went on TV and said they were 16, what would you believe?
I haven't listened to any such "experts" (how do you define one?), so I couldn't say. But if no one with similar qualifications had a different opinion I might believe it.
Again there's that prejudice.
What prejudice?
Do you understand that pointing out the smalller size of someone as suspicious is the same as pointing out someone unusually larger than everyone else is also suspicious?
It isn't the same, unless they demonstrate unusual muscle size - there was controversy over Florence Griffith-Joyner's rapid muscle development. But I haven't heard of any circumstances of people having milk teeth at age 16.
all I heard about the US advantage over every other team was their strength and power.
Who said that exactly? But I guess that's their tactic to train their girls to be stronger - given how small gymnasts generally are it could be quite possible to do that without drugs. On the other side you can't train your girls to stop ageing to stay springy and flexible.
then these very same people where accusing other countries including China of the same thing. I haven't heard anything from the Chinese side at the Olympics accusing others of cheating except to reply to Bela Karoli's charge. So there's the hypocrisy.
Since when was Joe Q Public's BBQ the same as the Chinese Olympic Committee? (I guess that's what you mean by "Chinese side") I'm sure there are Chinese people who accuse Phelps of cheating.
To try to think of a situation where China would complain, how many events have China been surprised to lose to someone in a gold medal final?
But China's athletes are suspect because of their nationality. The Chinese female swimmer that beat the favored Australian is already indicted as guilty of using drugs to beat the favored Australian woman even though it's been several days now and no word that she cheated from the IOC drug lab yet the articles said she still cheated in someway.
1. Some articles say it's the training regime.
2. China's female swimmers have a very black record when it comes to doping. If you want to blame anyone for the way they are regarded, criticise the past athletes, their coaches, the officials who helped or turned a blind eye, etc.
3. Testing doesn't always pick up on all drugs, but more commonly people can get around it if they use them at the right time (and not when being tested). An example is how those Russian athletes kept meeting the testers bright eyed and bushy tailed every single time. Why? Because they knew when the tests would happen, even the surprise ones - probably so that they could sort out their drug schedule accordingly.
American and Westerners don't get that kind of blanket prejudice and stigma even with all those scandals going on in the US about sports and drugs.
Probably because they win lots of medals legitimately, whereas so many of China's big medal winners in women's swimming have been exposed as cheats. Also re the gymnastics, China has been caught over using gymnasts under 16 before. The following
has some interesting material:
Earlier this year, a 14-year-old table-tennis prodigy in eastern Shandong province told me quite cheerfully that she competes as an 11-year-old in provincial and regional age-ranked competitions. Her national identity card, she said, had been changed to reflect the false birth-date. "It's no big deal," she insisted. "Most of my friends do it, too." Her coach, who hadn't been present when I interviewed the girl, denied any age-fixing at the school, although he said he was quite sure it happened at other academies.
Again now all of the sudden you're going to pick and choose what information you want to believe from a source that the West prejudicially labels as unrelaible?
Some of them were sports websites (maybe even official ones), not newspapers that publish political material. Furthermore, issues of "reliability" come down to political topics and Chinese newspapers doing things like censoring the other POV - I can't remember when people complained they kept getting people's ages wrong.
Finally, none of what you said explains why:
a) so many different sources would get the ages "wrong";
b) why they were suddenly updated without any explanation.
Perhaps you could address those points given that's what the main story is about. If there was nothing to cover-up, they would have been left alone - an apology/correction could have been published subsequently (apart from websites that simply showed athlete profiles).
The reason why the IOC is not further investigating is because their records they've had before match the dates to papers the Chinese submitted for the Olympics. So even if they did manipulate the records long ago even when they didn't need to be concerned about age
1. Who said they manipulated the records "long ago"?
2. All that has been required is showing passports. Even black-market people can make forgeries that pass muster - do you think the Chinese authorities couldn't have got the real-deal made up by paying bribes or whatever?
Again you're not going believe the IOC
Actually it was the International Gymnastics Federation, not the IOC - if you don't know even that basic fact about the sport don't lecture me about who I believe and what's what in gymnastics.
The IGF said they would accept the passports as they were - they didn't investigate their validity. If they had conducted a thorough investigation I would have been much more inclined to agree with the findings. But they didn't, so why shouldn't I query what happened?
