The Chinese gymnastics team has been under close investigation due to the athletes’ age group being questioned as it has been stated they were under the age of fourteen while the minimum age is suppose to be between fifteen and sixteen. This particular investigation included the 2000 Sidney Olympic team participants as well.
Some of the names mentioned were those of athletes such as: Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao, both obtained bronze medals in Australia as well as the Beijing 2008 gold medal winners, He Kexin and Yang Yiling. Dominique Dawes, a US Olympics representative stated "It's not about the medal; the important issue is them righting a wrong and hopefully prohibiting future Olympians from being underage. It's really about making sure every athlete is doing things the right way." The investigation was conducted by the International Olympics Committee and they decided to start it basically one month after the Olympics at Beijing concluded. The committee has taken the necessary time and the representatives have worked intensely to find the answers on whether these athletes were able to compete or not depending on the paper work each delegation delivered at the moment the participants were registered.
The documents provided to the Olympics Committee showed that six of the Chinese Gymnastic delegates were old enough to be part of the event. On the other hand, the committee also requested additional information on two other athletes whose data was not completely agreeable, these are: Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun.
In Dong’s case her birthday was dated January 20th, 1983 but additional documents showed a different date basically a three year difference which makes her status underage for her participation in Sidney 2000. The athlete has been questioned but up to this point there are no concrete answers regarding the real date of birth.
This could certainly lead to a more complicated situation as the alteration of documents with the athletes’ ages became a real problem when the age was changed from 14 to 15. The change had a medical purpose as the athletes’ bodies could suffer more injuries therefore the standard age finally changed to 16.
The media has strongly pressed on the issue as these young talents require to be taken care of as human beings not only as sport machines. Jacques Rogge, the IOC president has stated that it is now a requirement that all delegations deliver on top of the birth certificates also documents of school registrations, family pictures and others. All these documents were already received from the Chinese group and things seem to be just ok only those two athletes are still being investigated.
For the moment, the Chinese Gymnastics team has been cleared and the medals will be kept. The Olympics representatives hope these issues will be solved sooner than later especially with the new requirements and that in the coming years the delegations will not try to cut short to win medals by fooling the laws and the procedures.
About the author
Claudia Beckford provides outstanding 2008 Beijing Olympic Games content as well as information in the sports betting industry.
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