[Rocketfan]

State-media story fuels questions on gymnast's age

BEIJING - Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.


In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, http://www.hb.xinhuanet.com

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080814/ap_ ... ge_chinese

[LUconn]

Anybody see that swedish wrestler throw his bronze on the floor during the medal ceremony? HA.

[RubberMallet]

someone tell me whether this makes me a communist or not...


i have a michael phelps rant...just a small one....

basically i'm sick of him...

look, hes the greatest swimmer of all time, he is absolutely decimating his competition...its unbelievable how awesome he is....i'll give him that...heck i'll even say that he is probably the greatest olympian of all time...swimming is so insanely difficult to do fast and they train mercilessly yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah.

but look....if you are the best at something, it is more than likely that you will continually be the best at it within certain similar variations and distances. which means you'll probabably win 99.9% of the time when it comes to non strategic sports. Michael phelps is essentially swimming "within certain similar variations and distances" over and over and over and getting medals heaped upon him...

that is why i'm not going insane with lust when they talk about "he has more medals than mexico has EVER GOTTEN!##!!!" thats all great and all but he has the opportunity to compete for medals in close to 16 events if he wanted...nobody other than sprinters have that opportunity.

that is why when you look at a list of individual medal winners thats all it is....sprinters and swimmers...

like i said, amazing, not "sleep in his car parked in his driveway everynight" amazing...

next beef....i get lambasted with all this record breaking talk....he is breaking records blah blah blah blah....THEY ALL ARE....of the 22 swimming events that are done....19 world records were broken...some were broken right after they had been broken a 1/2 hour ago....if he was the only one breaking them i'd be awestruck...but the fact is each race there are 2-3 people in front of that green line....so its really not that amazing..

ok thats it....

as i said, he is amazing but lets all calm down before we hand him the presidency...

[Hold My Own]

COMMMIE COMMIE




Apparently there is quite a bit of strategy that goes into swimming though...from what I hear...I'm guessing you'd feel the same way if this was a track guy?

[RubberMallet]

COMMMIE COMMIE




Apparently there is quite a bit of strategy that goes into swimming though...from what I hear...I'm guessing you'd feel the same way if this was a track guy?

not short distances...you go go go go go...thats all there is too it..

[JK37]

COMMMIE COMMIE




Apparently there is quite a bit of strategy that goes into swimming though...from what I hear...I'm guessing you'd feel the same way if this was a track guy?

not short distances...you go go go go go...thats all there is too it..

but part of the "go go go"-ing (and at a faster rate than everyone else) are the technical aspects of a swimmer's stroke, which I would categorize as strategy.

From the vantage point of the records, I see your point. Swimmers and sprinters DO have the only chance to do what he is doing. I just wanted to make clear that there IS strategy involved.

[HenryGale]

Yes...sprinters and swimmers have the chance to win more medals than other sports...but you need to realize....ALL sprinters and ALL swimmers have had the same opportunity to do what Phelps is doing, but nobody else except for Spitz has accomplished this before. It is truly a remarkable accomplishment what Phelps is doing.

[RubberMallet]

COMMMIE COMMIE




Apparently there is quite a bit of strategy that goes into swimming though...from what I hear...I'm guessing you'd feel the same way if this was a track guy?

not short distances...you go go go go go...thats all there is too it..

but part of the "go go go"-ing (and at a faster rate than everyone else) are the technical aspects of a swimmer's stroke, which I would categorize as strategy.

From the vantage point of the records, I see your point. Swimmers and sprinters DO have the only chance to do what he is doing. I just wanted to make clear that there IS strategy involved.

going as fast as possible isn't something i consider a strategy...i guess within the scope of the definition, YES it is a strategy but there are no other strategies in non marathonic swimming...

[RubberMallet]

Yes...sprinters and swimmers have the chance to win more medals than other sports...but you need to realize....ALL sprinters and ALL swimmers have had the same opportunity to do what Phelps is doing, but nobody else except for Spitz has accomplished this before. It is truly a remarkable accomplishment what Phelps is doing.

i've never said it wasn't.....just not as remarkable enough to be the GREATEST ATHLETE EVAR!

[HenryGale]

Yes...sprinters and swimmers have the chance to win more medals than other sports...but you need to realize....ALL sprinters and ALL swimmers have had the same opportunity to do what Phelps is doing, but nobody else except for Spitz has accomplished this before. It is truly a remarkable accomplishment what Phelps is doing.

i've never said it wasn't.....just not as remarkable enough to be the GREATEST ATHLETE EVAR!

I don't know...when you do something nobody has EVER done...hard to make a case he's not...

[RubberMallet]

people do things that someone else hasn't ever done all the time in sports....hence the term "record"

hes the best swimmer ever....but a guy that doesn't do any running or intense weight training because of constant injuries is not the greatest athlete ever...

[BJWilliams]

people do things that someone else hasn't ever done all the time in sports....hence the term "record"

hes the best swimmer ever....but a guy that doesn't do any running or intense weight training because of constant injuries is not the greatest athlete ever...

Whats interesting is that Michael Phelps has said he stepped up his training both in and out of the water. he's been hitting the gym and getting stronger and that really has paid dividends in all of his races I do think

[JK37]

GOLD!

for Liukin!

[LUconn]

Dan Wetzel

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijin ... &type=lgns

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijin ... &type=lgns

Is he arguing with himself?

[Fumblerooskies]

Brazil vs USA in beach volleyball...coming up sometime in the next day or so...should be a good match.

[ALUmnus]

This volleyball tournament is taking forever. They should have been able to finish it in a week, get some more badmitten(?) on TV.

Also, the boxing is horrible, is it even an objective to knock someone out?

[blwall1416]

Also, the boxing is horrible, is it even an objective to knock someone out?

This is amateur boxing...points system...not necessarily a KO. It happens, but it's rare...blame it on the head gear. The good thing for olympic boxing is that they have Teddy Atlas doing some commentary. He is brilliant when it comes to breaking down the sweet science of boxing.

[ALUmnus]

Also, the boxing is horrible, is it even an objective to knock someone out?

This is amateur boxing...points system...not necessarily a KO. It happens, but it's rare...blame it on the head gear.

And this is why it's horrible.

[JK37]

Dan Wetzel

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijin ... &type=lgns

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijin ... &type=lgns

Is he arguing with himself?

No, I don't think he is. The first story you posted blasts the Karolyi's for the way in which they are repsonding to the suspicion of the Chinese girls' ages. (I agree with him).

The second article basically says that the IOC and FIG are making this worse by burying their heads in the sand. He's saying the sport itself deserves their investigation. He also says that if the Chinese ever want the cloud over their Gold to go away, they deserve it, too. I also agree with his point there.

The age of the Chinese gymnasts has overwhelmed the women’s gymnastics competition.

It’s not just the wild and often ill-timed accusations by USA Gymnastics team coordinator Marta Karoyli and her husband Bela Karoyli, who dubbed the Chinese “half people.”

It’s the snickers from disbelieving fans around the world who can’t come to grips with girls who look so young actually being 16.

The entire competition has lost credibility. Outside of China the focus has been on the birth dates, not the brilliance of the Chinese athletes.

The IOC and FIG can’t continue to bury their heads and hope it will blow away.

[coolhandluke]

back to the issue at hand... Could this lead to China being stripped of its gold medal for cheating, meaning we would get the gold?

[ToTheLeft]

Umm, Phelps is amazing.

[01LUGrad]

So far the T&F coverage is absolutely terrible. They showed all of the 100m heats including all of the false starts (15 minutes or so), but only 5 minutes of the 10,000 where an American won bronze. Oh, did I mention it was on at 2:00 am? I may quit.

[LUconn]

So far the T&F coverage is absolutely terrible. They showed all of the 100m heats including all of the false starts (15 minutes or so), but only 5 minutes of the 10,000 where an American won bronze. Oh, did I mention it was on at 2:00 am? I may quit.

Have you been watching any of the rest of the olympics? All of the good stuff has been on from 10pm to like 3am. You gotta DVR it. Besides, didn't T&F just start like 2 days ago? I think people would rather watch gold medal matches vs a 1500 M heat.

[RubberMallet]

i watched the 15,000 m run...it. was. excruciating.

[flamesbball84]

track and field in general is boring