国际奥委会开始调查中国女体操运动员年龄

[hardywang]

http://www.thestar.com/article/483534

BEIJING–The International Olympic Committee says it is making inquiries concerning China's tiny gymnastic phenom, He Kexin, and other Chinese gymnasts over "discrepancies" concerning their ages.

The move would shock and disappoint the Chinese, who have gone out of their way to put on a perfect sports showcase for the world – particularly if He and her teammates are found to be too young to compete.

Spokesperson Giselle Davies said today the IOC was doing "due diligence" and that "you shouldn't regard this as some sort of formal investigation."

"Yes we have asked the (International) Gymnastics Federation to look into what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies on this case," Davies said.

"We did discuss it earlier in these Games ... and we believed that this had addressed the issue. However, with some questions remaining we have now asked the federation to take a further look."



A growing legion of critics has consistently complained there is simply too much information in the public domain to believe He is the required 16 years of age to compete.

A number of articles in the Chinese media last year routinely identified her as a 13-year-old.

Rules require gymnasts be at least 16 in the year they compete.

Davies told a British newspaper last night that because of troubling new developments, the committee had instructed the International Gymnastics Federation, the sport's governing body, to investigate.

"More information has come to light that did point to discrepancies," she told The Times of London.

Davies claimed today the article is "probably misleading."

It was the scandal-in-the-making that wouldn't go away.

Chinese officials were able to clear the air for these Olympic Games.

But they couldn't do the same for the controversy over charges from the media – and competitors – that gold medal gymnast He was two years too young to compete.

Investigative journalists uncovered ample evidence last month to question China's insistence that she was 16.

Then a computer expert, Mike Walker of New York-based Intrepidus Group, added more muscle to those questions, using a Chinese search engine to unearth official government documents showing He to be just 14.

Walker posted his findings on the Internet on the blog Stryde Hax.

The online discoveries ratcheted up pressure on the IOC to investigate He's age, an issue it had skirted – until now.

Mounting evidence pushed the committee to take the uncomfortable step of looking into one of the host nation's newest sensations.

"Much of the coverage regarding Kexin's age has only mentioned `allegations' of fraud and the IOC has ignored the matter completely," Walker wrote under the name "Stryde." "I believe these primary documents, issued by the Chinese state ... rise to a level of evidence higher than allegation."

With suspicion deepening, IOC officials were moved to act to protect the Games' integrity and the values of the Olympic movement.

After winning the first of two golds at these Games, He was asked her age by reporters.

"My real age is 16," she said. "I don't care what other people say."

Chinese officials have boldly defended the young athlete, even producing a passport – issued in February – showing He to be 16 and born Jan. 1, 1992.

But documents unearthed by Walker showed her birthdate as Jan. 1, 1994, which would make her 14 years and 8 months, well below the required 16 years.

Last month the New York Times and The Associated Press uncovered documents and a string of newspaper references that placed He's age at 14.

Walker's meticulous step-by-step "how-to" on his blog, for the benefit of his readers, lent greater weight to the documents unearthed.

The Times and AP had unearthed a web page from a Chinese sports bureau from 2006 that listed 1994 as He's year of birth; a report on a competition last November that listed her as 13; and a story in the country's English language newspaper, China Daily, that referred to her as 14 just three months ago.

Since then, Chinese bloggers and netizens have rushed into cyberspace to find many similar references in the Chinese media identifying He as younger than the 16 Chinese officials claimed she was.

Many of those references have been deleted.

And some have even been altered to comply with the Chinese sporting officials' claims.

Walker concentrated his Internet search on Excel spreadsheets where he hoped he might discover He's name on official lists.

He used Google, Google China and, finally, the popular Chinese language search engine Baidu.

They also take individual snapshots of what they find – known as a "cache." So even if an original Web page is deleted, the cache, or snapshot, can often still be viewed.

On Google and Google China, references to He were deleted from documents. Even their caches had been "scrubbed," Walker said.

When he did a search using Baidu, all pages and data had been deleted.

But when he examined the Baidu caches, two official government documents were there.

Two spreadsheets from the central government's General Administration of Sport in China listed He's birthdate as Jan. 1, 1994.

Walker sought to head off criticism that he was "anti-China."

"While I may disagree with the effort the Chinese government is making to conceal this young woman's age, I have the utmost respect for Chinese people, and I believe that united, they will be able to make state-sponsored censorship a thing of the past."