Olympics: gymnastics

My Way News - Gymnasts' parents 'indignant' over age questions:

"Earlier this month, the AP found registration lists previously posted on the Web site of the General Administration of Sport of China that showed both He and Yang were too young to compete. He was born Jan. 1, 1994, according to the 2005, 2006 and 2007 registration lists. Yang was born Aug. 26, 1993, according to the 2004, 2005 and 2006 registration lists. In the 2007 registration list, however, her birthday has changed to Aug. 26, 1992."

....and....

"North Korea was barred from the 1993 world championships after FIG officials discovered Kim Gwang Suk, the gold medalist on uneven bars in 1991, was listed as 15 for three years in a row. Romania admitted in 2002 that several gymnasts' ages had been falsified, including Olympic medalists Gina Gogean and Alexandra Marinescu."

.... and ...

"Even China's own Yang Yun, a double bronze medalist in Sydney, said during an interview aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 during the 2000 Games."

which would mean that China has already been caught at least once already having played fast and loose with the ages of their athletes.

This time they just have gotten better at covering their tracks. but the fact that the AP was able to find years worth of official documents that would put these girls ages in question ... not ones that can be tampered with by the government but rather ones from the Olympic committee themselves (FIG is an olympic body) would trump those of the chinese government.

Actually I don't know why the IOC doesn't have years worth of records for these girls as it is .... I would have thought that the official tallies/contestant/participant lists of each event that these girls were in would have to be sent to some central location --- I know we had to do that in Obedience trials.

I know, I know two different things ... but the point was win or lose there was a main body (in this case the AKC) which had an official record of each dog and how they did -- a paper trail that most people would never realized existed .... if I wanted to I could check someplace and find out what score my dog Trouble got back in 1984 .... I could find out which shows he was in and what his age was at each show -- I would think they would have something very simular to that for something as major as the IOC!

So if the IOC really wanted to put this to rest they would go the extra mile and figure it out -- otherwise it would really taint every gymnastic event from this point forward .... it really, really would.