The Chinese olympics have been the highlight of my summer. It is amazing to see the extraordinary discipline, hard work and drive that make an athlete go for the gold. However, the issue with the underage Chinese gymnasts has been incredibly disturbing. When Bob Costas interviewed the head of the Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge said that the Chinese officials had provided the Chinese gymnasts’ passports… and that the IOC was looking into it… Are you kidding me? Am I alone in this or are people that naive? Or has some secret mafia deal between the Olympic Committee and Beijing government been brokered to keep this issue under wraps? How can you accept the word of the Chinese government officials when several people have hacked into their records and proven some of the Chinese gymnasts are underage? It’s just very disappointing and unfair to all the gymnasts, especially the American team. Will it ever be resolved? I doubt it. It is a disappointment that what I thought was a fair competition of physical superiority has been turned into another Hollywood shuffle — I scratch your back and you scratch mine… Disgusting.
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The records I believe were publically available and on file. Don’t forget that Chinese national news agencies, most notably Xinhua published the ages of these gymnasts (PROVING they were underage) as well. These publications, along with those Chinese Athletic Sports Records (I am unaware of the China’s official term for the records) are probably getting cleaned up so the “truth” [according to China] will be somewhere in writing.
As far as documented proof of what China is providing to the IOC, well, it’s all getting filtered before it even gets to them–as I just stated. This in turn leads me to believe that _nothing_ will end up happening as a result. China can control and “fix” records, news reports, citizenship id’s, etc, etc. You name it, it’s in control of the state. Whatta mind-f*ck for the many of us who’re used to all these freedoms.
Mr. 2Cents on August 28th, 2008 at 9:40 am | Link
I totally agree with you. China was trying so hard to make this Olympics the greatest ever but they got a world of issues coming at them.
First of all is their political belief and Tibet. What China government did to Tibet is inhumane, crazy and unfair. The world supported Tibet but China Government ignore it. Thousand of people demonstrated all over the world including ruined the torch rally event but China government block it and didn’t reveal the footage to the world.
Then the Olympics finally on the way and we all watched the amazing opening ceremony on TV. It was truly amazing and i truly impressed. Then we found out that the firework was faked, the singer was faked and god know how many more things or peoples were fake that night. I mean how can a country cheated the world but putting Computer Generated Image(CGI) on the screen and said it was real? Never in the 112 years of modern Olympics history, a country use fake item during the opening ceremony. Remember the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where an archer named Rebollo lit one of his arrows and fired it across the stadium and over the Olympic cauldron to spectacularly light the flame. It was very dangerous yet they Spain Government did not fake it.
Then the controversial surrounding the game itself. the most notable controversial was China athletes underage issue. It’s so clear that 3 members of the china Gymnastics team were underage as china local sport website reported they are underage. Furthermore doctor and medical expert around the world assure that these 3 gymnast are nowhere near 16 by looking at their video and picture.
There are other controversial such as some of the biggest competitor athletes for China were “badly treated” by BOB. They were asked to attend the anti doping test more once and their room were much worse than Chinese’s.
Joseph on September 7th, 2008 at 11:07 pm | Link