for #3. Can only understand about every 4th word he says clearly.

…this is great stuff.

but I bet nothing comes of this. The Chinese government will simply claim that spreadsheet was in error and will provide altered documents “proving” she’s 16. Without a smoking gun, the IOC will just have to say the investigation was inconclusive.

The funny thing is, that the rule that Bela Karolyi has been screaming that the Chinese are cheating on is one that he personally opposes. And the rule was passed in the first place because of allegations that young children were being overworked and abused by, wait for it, Bela Karolyi.

But nothing will come from this. The IOC are like the Canadians, they don’t want to offend anybody, especially the host country. I hate how people are trying to make this a race issue or say something along the lines that Americans are bringing this up only because they lost the gold and that we’re all whiners, but the fact remains that cheating is cheating. This issue was raised by the NY times before the Olympics even started. The IOC and more specifically the FIG have dragged their feet with this issue and it’s making them look so incredibly bad. There are rules in place for a reason and this is no different from using performance enhancing drugs. If these rules are broken, you should be punished or the integrity of the game is ruined. One simple solution to the problem is to just get rid of the rule in the first place, that way, every four years the whole world can watch 10 year old kids represent their countries.

P.S. Alicia Sacramone was robbed on the women’s vault. The new scoring system is horribly flawed along with the previous ones. If you fall on any of your vaults, you should not win a medal.

Just goes to show you how political the Olympics has always been. Idealism takes a backseat anytime to human nature with less then idealistic motives, especially with so much on the lin.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of our athletes and the wins and the national prestige, however, we have hardly been pure ourselves in the past (thinking of Marion Jones in prison right now …)

…I know Chinese people who have come to the US with passports listing them as being several years older than they actually are. It apparently is not too difficult to do in China — you just need to bribe the right people.

If this can be done for random people, why couldn’t it be done for athletes whose ability to compete in the Olympics depends on being a certain age?

China doesn’t care about age so it’s ok!

See, they don’t age discriminate at all when it comes to work labor camps – why should they when it comes to gymnastics?

Of course I doubt NBC will be covering this anytime soon.

My mom works for a Diagnostics center where they do all sorts of X-rays and she was telling me that they can do X-rays that show bone density or lenght or something like that and that doctors can tell how old someone is from the X-rays. This only works for someone who is still growing so you would think that if these girls really are 12,13, or 14, than the X-rays could be pretty useful.

the Today show this morning. I thought they said the IOC has asked the gymastics federation to do an investigation first. Whether anything gets done depends on what the federation finds out. It may take years for any results to come of this.

who was supposed to be born 1/1/94 and her birth certificate was changed to 1/1/92? I was half-asleep that night Costas mentioned it. It was the same night the mens beach volleyball team won the Gold. I nodded out at the end of the 2nd set when they lost 21-17 and woke up with them running around the sand holding the flag after a 3rd set 15-4 blowout…

did we even compete in the Olympics? Why didn’t we boycott them again? It’s China, for crying out loud….RED China.
 Don’t we have a dislike for countries that treat their citizens like the Chinese do? Aren’t we always pointing our red, white and blue finger at countries that don’t share our definition of “Human Rights”? Didn’t we boycott the Olympics several years ago for some political reason? Did that have something do to with the USSR and Afghanistan? Maybe not but it was something political.
 Personally I have no interest in the Olympic games because it usually ends up with some sort of corruption, be it the judges, the athletes, the government(s), etc.
 There is too much politics involved. ANY politics in the Olympics is too much.
OF COURSE the Chinese would cheat….and the Russians, and the U.S and so on and so on. If it’s not steroids it’s age. If it’s not steroids or age it’s amateurs vs professionals. Whatever someone thinks they can get away with. The whole thing is anything but sporting and fair and nothing less than a way for one country to beat another country without a battlefield. The Olympics motto should be “All’s fair in love and war…and sports”.
It wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all if there were no more Olympics.
 My fingers are getting restless about this, I better stop here while I still can.