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Aug
15
Those Chinese Gymnasts
Filed Under International Racism, Media Praises and Critiques, Pop Culture, Sociology by Rachel
Anybody who follows the coverage of China in the American media should be ready to hear about some grand Chinese conspiracy. I discussed this in my top trends of 2007, and of course, the trend continues in 2008. This year’s conspiracy involves the ages of the Chinese gymnasts. It is widely rumored that many of the gymnasts are under the 16 age limit. Judging from their looks alone there is a good chance they are underage, but is being underage really that much of an advantage? I know people age out of that sport when they are young, but mental maturity is also an asset.
Furthermore, I remember it was not that long ago that the age of a prominent US gymnast was under scrutiny. Apparently, the age limit was raised after this US gymnast participated in Olympic competition. Nevertheless, all of the sniping about age limits for Chinese gymnasts seems a little ironic when the US has sent very young girls into competition as well. I suspect if we could get away with it we would bend the rules too. I really don’t think those folks complaining are terribly worried about the welfare of Chinese gymnastics teams; they are more upset that the Chinese are so good. I think there are some sour grapes in all of that whining.
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22 Responses to “Those Chinese Gymnasts”
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“I really dont think those folks complaining are terribly worried about the welfare of Chinese gymnastics teams; they are more upset that the Chinese are so good. I think there are some sour grapes in all of that whining.”
Pretty much. The underlying America-centric media coverage is so obvious and borders on being prejudiced, if you ask me. Ridiculous.
The Brits have a 14 year old swimmer in competition, don’t they?
A couple of things…
Moceanu was just shy of her 15th birthday when she competed in Atlanta. The age limit at that time was below 14, so there is no controversy over rule breaking. The issue was how hard these gymnasts were working and the injuries they were compiling at such young ages, which is why the current rules regarding age are in place.
In gymnastics, younger is an advantage. Younger athletes have a different center of gravity, making many skills easier to execute. They also tend to be lighter and rather fearless, the latter of which can be dangerous. Mentally the younger gymnasts might not be as mature but they are trained to be robots and perform skills over and over to perfection.
The American team didn’t deserve gold. Their start values were lower and they made mistakes. The reason so many people are so upset is that, in a time when cheating is such a hot topic thanks to doping, many of us feel that any kind of cheating the rules should not be tolerated. It’s not sour grapes so much as making sure that all athletes in a competition are held to the same standards. And in a country with such insane governmental control, one has to wonder why just months ago some of the Chinese gymnasts were listed as 13 and 14 on official competition rosters yet they were able to get passports with birthdays making them eligible to compete.
I think the age does factor in because of the things previous poster stated, however, considering the woman from Germany (sorry, I don’t remember her name) got a medal last night (in vault? I think?) and she’s 33 or something and a mother tells me younger isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!
The Americans definitely didn’t deserve gold in the team all-around competition. They made a LOT of mistakes.
I believe these girls might be of age. They say that Chinese gymnasts are recruited at age 3. I am prosing a theory that they are all of the legal age for the Olympics but that they keep them in small dark rooms when they are not training and wrap them in tight hemp so that they do not grow.
For real, China definitely doesn’t have a problem torturing people, lying about the age of their Olympians as can be seen from 2002, and have a knack for covering things up. This is possible.
And why just single China out on the age of athletes?
Chinese gymnasts age.
Why just stop there?
Many pundits have jumped on China as being more atrocious in its treatment of its citizens (removing many poor people from areas near the Games to make way for a cleaned up sanitized view of China), as if China is the first and only country which has treated its citizens harshly now that the Olympic Games are held there.
Yes, China’s human rights record is lousy with the Tibet issue and the Darfur/Sufan issue.
But, neither is China the only country that has mistreated its citizens to put “on a happy face” to the public.
Many countries that have hosted the Olymopic Games have kicked their own citizens to the curb to try and make like there is no xenophobia, racism or internal hatreds going on in their counries, so singling China out as if it is some lone bully that runs roughshod over its citizens to put on the games is just as wrong.
Not to mention the Spanish fans making pulled-eye gestures against the Chinese that were supposed to be a compliment to them
Yeah, right.
Making slnty-eyed gestures is anything byt polite, or respectful.
Sorry for the typos.
[...] to see teenage olympians (e.g. in gymnastics) bend their young bodies. [see The Ledger, via Rachel's Tavern] Why can we not have a special olympic competition for athletes younger than 18, combined with a [...]
Prof Rachel:
I don’t know…might be seeing a case where the pot is calling the kettle black. But I am reluctant to say that we are whining if we are making a stink in just one or two competitions. If the complaints spanned across many different competitive venues at the Olympics, then I would be more concerned. Further, I am not certain it is just the U.S. raising this issue with the ages of the Chinese gymnasts.
Also, it does not seem the complaints are coming from our Olympians themselves. Rather, there are some media outlets in the west who are stirring this – most notably the New York Times.
I do wonder what Liang Chow, the coach of Shawn Johnson, thinks of this. I would like to see him offer some comments. (He just might after he is back on U.S. soil.)
The recurring complaint I have seen among U.S. athletes and those of the European countries is the mysterious stomach flu/food poisoning/diarrhea that people are having over there. Anyone else notice this?
Overall, I believe our Olympians (from our female runners, to our female and male swimmers, and our mens’ gymnastic teams) have conducted themselves honorably – in winning or losing. The WNBA is always awesome, and our men from the NBA are actually playing with a little heart this time around. Most of our athletes have been extremely gracious no matter what the outcome. Contrast what we have seen with Swedish athlete who threw his bronze medal to the ground or the French swimmers who trash-talked our team…and then lost to us! (Though I understand the French swimmer’s comments could have been lost in translation – it could have been more a spirited and friendly rivalry.) Contrary to popular belief, the French people do not hate us.
But what made me really hot was the despicable performance by the U.S. and the Chinese in baseball. These teams were at each other’s throats. It was just plain awful. I felt shame as I watched our team play dirty on the field and then the Chinese paid us back in kind.
The age rule was put in place to protect athletes. It’s one thing to get a gymnast up to the elite level. It’s another thing entirely to keep her there as she goes through puberty, growth spurts, and injury. With the minimum age at 16, gymnasts will have already entered puberty by the time they are eligible to compete. This forces coaches to think about how they are going to pace a gymnast’s training. Without the age limit, coaches could simply get girls up to the necessary standard, then drop them as soon as puberty or growth spurts start to be an issue. If you can always compete a gymnast who has not had to deal with puberty, then there is much less incentive to help older gymnasts extend and develop their careers. The age limit attempts to prevent coaches and programs from treating gymnasts as disposable.
Gymnastics fans have been following the dispute over He Kexin’s age since 2007, even before it became clear that she would be on the Olympic team. The issue at stake is not that she is good enough to beat the Americans. The issue is that she is a very talented gymnast who deserves to have a chance to develop her abilities in her own time, without being rushed into competition early and then discarded in favor of the next prepubescent phenom that appears. Unfortunately, the Chinese gymnastics program has a history of putting the number of medals won ahead of the good of the athletes. That’s a major reason why hardcore gymnastics fans are upset.
There is definitely something shady going on between the chinese and the IOC. Have you guys seen http://www.tinfoilonmyhead.com? Really good take on the Olympic Gymnastics conspiracy?
I’m kind of saddened that under 16s are no longer able to compete in the Olympics – its unnecessary infantization – they aren’t fragile 3 year olds who need to be protected
I’ve been tickled by the “reimagining” of the medals table by some in the “patriotic” American media. Instead of listing countries by the number of gold medals won (as everyone else does), they’ve taken to just counting the number of medals in total. On this definition, the US won the olympics! You’ve got to larf …
Yeah, I noticed that too very public sociologist. I’ve also notice how in many events they only show the American competitors.
And if everybody is so worried about those too young Chinese girls, why aren’t they worried about the 14 year old British diver?
Prof Rachel & A Very Public Sociologist:
I see this one a little differently too. I have always been bothered that the number of silver and bronze medals won by the U.S (or other nations)was not worthy of emphasis or mention. It always seemed that the measure of success was who won gold…and gold only.
Obviously, the level of determination it takes to get to that level (the top three) is something I can barely grasp.
I am glad to see that we are celebrating the success of silver medalists like 41 year old Dara Torres.
China has many things in common with ancient Sparta. I’m very thankful that I do not live there.
Rachel, gymnastics and diving are two very different sports. Diving does not have the impact on a person’s body that gymnastics does. And the British diver is male. A 14 yo old male diver doesn’t have an advantage over a sixteen yo. Whereas with females there is a major difference; puberty. When the hips widen and the legs lengthen a girl’s center of gravity changes which totally alters her gymnastic ability.
And keep in mind, at one Chinese gymnast who won in a previous Olympics admitted that she was underage. It’s not like folks are pulling this out of left field.
http://olympics.fanhouse.com/2008/08/23/chinese-gymnast-yang-yun-admits-she-was-underage-when-she-won-20/
The Chinese have been playing dirty for quite some time. I hope no one has forgotten where all those disgraced East German coaches wound up after the wall fell. Yep, those same coaches who spent the 70s turning German female swimmers into men wound up in China.
Either the girls are underage, or they’ve been given drugs to halt the onset of menarche, either way, they’re dirty, but of course, the IOC won’t do a damned thing about it because they’re dirty too.
“why arent they worried about the 14 year old British diver?”
1. The ‘age-injury-discard’ triad-issue is not as prevelant in other sports.
2. The rules for each sport are set by the sports international governing body, not the International Olympic Committee.
3. Despite appearing at a unified event that is heavily broadcast worldwide, each sport’s athletes/coaches/boosters/organizers generally have little actual cross discipline interaction/influence.
4. If there is cross-discipline administrative interaction, the issues of sport-specific to global-sport rule changes are usually slow in the making.Ie anti-doping rules and enforcement were implemented over the course of 40 years from the first acknowledgment of the problem.
5. In general, event organizers, administrators and athletes see rules applied to their sport that really have no rational basis as odious bureaucracy and a buzz-kill all around. After all, it is a sport and supposed to be fun, not a paperwork nightmare.
I find the age rule itself irrelevant in this case. Also, the athletes from other teams besides China seem to not really be overly concerned (at least publicly). What is interesting is the media coverage/public opinion of the normally unnoticed boring process of dealing with minor out-of-competition rule violations.
In the process, the once-every-four-years-I-watch-sports crowd often misses the genuine wave of internationalism that the thousands of participants feel at the events. At odds with this is super-nationalistic medal counts etc., which really is not the primary focus of most of the participant’s. Very few will win medals, and most that I have encountered are very realistic about this. The public becomes myopic about this simple fact, and seeks out even the slightest rule controversy (which the athletes deal with daily) to amplify their own nationalistic (or other) world view.
er participants. and other typos, sorry
Rachel said: “The recurring complaint I have seen among U.S. athletes and those of the European countries is the mysterious stomach flu/food poisoning/diarrhea that people are having over there. Anyone else notice this?”
Just a comment on the recurring stomach flu, etc. Just keep in mind how much traveling has occurred for these athletes and how many athletes are staying in the Olympic village and in hotels. It’s pretty easy to come down with similar illnesses when you are flying, in a foreign country, and many of these athletes didn’t go straight to the Olympics. They had training camps in other Asian countries or provinces in China to get acclimated to the time zone. So you might be a little off your game in contact with a variety of illness strains. That’s par for the course for most major championships Olympics, World, Pan Pacifics, Commonwealth Games, Goodwill Games, etc.
In addition, in the early 1990’s Chinese female swimmers (coached by disgraced former East German coaches) blasted onto the seen in a variety of events including the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the 1994 World Championships. They set numerous world records. Later, these swimmers who came out of nowhere all tested positive for banned substances. Only in the last year an a half have the last tainted records been erased. China has a recent history of cheating, and swimming was most definitely not the only sport they imported coaches for. All sports in which strength and speed were necessary were given due diligence in recruitment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtB5VLxOBsQ&fmt=6