What’s Worse?
By Nate • Aug 14th, 2008 • Category: Sports
A few nights ago, while watching the women’s all-around gymnastics finals, Sara and I both remarked that none of the Chinese gymnasts looked old enough to be done losing their baby teeth. Around the time we came to that realization, the commentators announced the Olympic rules stating that the gymnasts had to turn 16 years of age within the Olympic year to be eligible to compete. These two things did not match up.
In the end, the US gymnastics team lost the gold to the Chinese and had to settle for silver.
Now, documents have apparently surfaced that prove that at least some of the Chinese gymnasts were under age. He Kexin has been reported as being only 14 and even 13 by different sources, including the Chinese media.
Now, on one hand, why should we care? It’s disturbing enough that these girls are taken from their family homes at ages as young as 3 years old and enrolled in training camps to mold them into Olympic gymnasts, seeing their families as little as once a year. In the face of something like that, breaking Olympic rules by letting a 14 year old compete is nothing at all.
On the other hand, cheating is cheating. We ostracize athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs to break the rules, why not go after a country that is forging international documents to break the rules? Rules are rules and they should be enforced evenly.
The real conundrum, though, is for the American gymnasts. If these allegations are true (and I’ll assume that they are, given China’s blustering about them being false. Methinks thou dost protest too much and all that.) then these teens were beaten by little girls. If I remember anything about being a teenager, and I’d like to hope that I do, NOTHING was more embarrassing than being beaten at anything by someone younger than you.
Is it more embarrassing to be beaten by a team that included a assumed 14 year old or to be beaten by a team with a known 14 year old, have that team be disqualified and be awarded their Gold Medals in forfeit?
Nate is pretty sure Mark Twain said it best, "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place."
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They as the host country especially should be beyond reproach. Medals should be forfeited for sure! I don’t think getting beaten by someone younger should be a concern. Heck, it happens all the time in sport - look at the likes of Wimbledon to see how often youngsters triumph over the more seasoned players. What matters is winning fair and square.
This is because Asian looks a lot younger than they already are. Most Asian are small that they look young. I remember that when I was teaching, one of my co-teacher looks like a teenager but she is already is 25 years old.
I, myself looks a younger than my real age. My college students once thought that I was their classmate because I look younger; I’m 28 at that time.
I’m Chinese and I’m currently 49 years old. Up until about 5 years ago, people thought I was in my late 20s and were shocked when I showed them my driver’s license. Both of my parents look extremely young for their age. As for me, I credit my youthful appearance to eating Twinkies and the preservatives that they contain.
As for cheating, if China did cheat with under-aged gymnasts, stripped the medals from them and give them to the next person in line. If they didn’t cheat, it just goes to show how good someone can be when you do nothing but train throughout your life beginning at a very young age.
As far as I know some Chinese are doing some form of martial arts wherein they are training their body to the limit. I think that it has something to do with those monks from the temple. I haven’t encountered one yet but based on most movies that I have watched, they are extremely patient when it comes to training themselves.
They have since determined she was old enough to compete and since Asian people have a tendency to look much younger than what they really are, it was no surprise that she turned out to be old enough. I think that people were just looking for that chance for the gold.