Hacker Uncovers Chinese Olympic Fraud 1275
SkeptOlympics writes "A new chapter in the ongoing controversy surrounding China's women's gymnastics team opened today, as search engine hacker stryde.hax found surviving copies of official registration documents issued by China's General Administration of Sport of China. The incriminating documents, expunged by censors from the official site and from Google's document cache, still appear in the document translation cache of Chinese search giant Baidu, here (1) and here (2), showing the age of one of China's gold medal winning gymnasts to be 14 instead of 16, the minimum age for competition presented on her government-issued passport. Now that official government documentation is available, how long will the IOC be able to keep a lid on this scandal?" I imagine the answer is "Forever."
Re-education (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Informative)
This is actually incredibly likely
See http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/peter_foster/blog/2008/08/20/the_ioc_plays_appeaser_in_beijing [telegraph.co.uk] for recent prior art.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, it seems overwhelmingly apparent that the Olympics is simply big business. In your article, the IOC states:
'"My clients, the sponsors and broadcasters are happy with the positive view that the Olympics is about sport and the focus is quite rightly on that," said the IOC's marketing director Timo Lumme.' Yes, that is who their clients are.
I saw a number being tossed around of $1 billion that NBC paid for exclusive broadcast rights. Visa paid hundreds of millions for exclusive credit card rights, to the detriment of the people that actually attend the games, and find they can't use their credit cards.
According to Wikipedia, they made 4 billion from the last Olympics, and they distribute the money throughout the Olympic Movement. As best as I can tell from Google, these are all non-profits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Olympic_Committee#Olympic_marketingAs [wikipedia.org]
My question then is: Where is all the money going? 4 billion dollars is a lot to be spending just on administration, especially when the host countries are the ones paying for infrastructure.
It just doesn't seem to make any sense. It can't all be going to hookers and blow...can it?
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Informative)
Well, Los Angeles turned a profit because they didn't undertake the massive new construction that most Olympic venues do. I think I read that there was basically two structures built for the Olympics. Everything else was done in pre-existing stadiums/facilities.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Funny)
But, IANC, I only know conversational Japanese and know a little (very little) about Chinese culture.
i think i would know enough about chinese culture and language (none) to know that 14 < 16.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Interesting)
Unlike "Do no Evil" Google.
http://strydehax.blogspot.com/2008/08/hack-olympics.html [blogspot.com]
1. Google's cached copy of the spreadsheet does not contain Hexin's age record, and Baidu's does. This does not necessarily imply that Google allowed its data to be rewritten by Chinese censors, but the possibility does present itself.
2. From the minute I pressed the publish button on this blog, the clock is ticking until Hexin's true age is wiped out of the Baidu cache forever. It is up to you, the folks reading this blog, to take your own screenshots and notarize them by publishing them. If you put a link in the comments section, I'll post it.
Hmm, that reminds me of something
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole [wikipedia.org]
In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages, to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.(pp. 34-35 1984 by George Orwell)
Totalitarian societies will always have memory holes to destroy documents with politically inconvenient facts in them, and armies of minions writing replacement documents without those facts. But it's very, very sad to see Google seemingly cooperating in this process.
I took a screenshot of the age in the Baidu cache -
http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/2111/199411bw0.png [imageshack.us]
Re-education is right (Score:5, Informative)
A couple of elderly women (70+) are being reducated [guardian.co.uk] for wanting to protest their eviction and their sin was timing their application during the Olympics. That and the incident where their poster golden boy broke down from too much training and his coach said the extreme pressure [telegraph.co.uk] from the regime was to blame convinces me there is a god up there and he was looking after me for I was not born in China.
Yes, I am being melodramatic and I think it's apt.
Re:Cultural Differences (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry dude but I stopped taking you seriously after that first sentence.
Re:Cultural Differences (Score:4, Insightful)
People in many western countries have an expectation that governments and businesses behave in a mostly honorable manner.
True, but one of the many problems inherent in modern democracies, if you can get past the ill-informed electorate issue, is apathy.
Say, for example, that the document in question wasn't a registration document, but a purchase order. And instead a clever use of a web search engine to discover the disappearing document, we have a trained diplomat (whose wife happens to be a CIA agent) uncovering a forgery. In both cases the government presents the perceived reality as truth, while the rest of us go on about our business.
Maybe the question is not whether we expect such behaviour, but whether we expect anything to change.
Re:Cultural Differences (Score:5, Insightful)
Say what you want about the Chinese, though. No really, go ahead — the Chinese people don't get to. And therein lies the only real difference between us and them. For now.
Re:Cultural Differences (Score:5, Insightful)
"People in many western countries have an expectation that governments and businesses behave in a mostly honorable manner."
Sorry, I have no such expectation. I expect government will behave in accordance with the will of the corporations who got the politicians elected and who pay them good money. I expect that *every* politician is corrupt until proven innocent
The US for instance is currently ruled by representatives of Big Oil and private military corporations that are sucking trillions out of the hands of the US taxpayers. With that kind of money available its no wonder there is corruption abounding. When the Iraq war winds up, you can expect another one to follow because the companies making all that money at the moment will not be likely to stand for a peace. Its too good a racket
Re:Cultural Differences (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cultural Differences (Score:5, Insightful)
There's only one problem with this, but it's huge. The use of the term "entitlement programs" is a little misleading. A better term may be "conscience leading" or "moral corrections". Many with the philosophies that you spew seem not to understand that we all, in this country especially, do not start or end on equal footing when quality of life, or the means to gain it is concerned. These "entitlement" programs are merely the moral outcome of this.
The military-industrial complex has the opposite effect. Remember, while "entitlement programs" do require much of our resources, and rightfully so IMO, the amount we spend on far more frivolous things (yes, I said frivolous) that merely end up making the rich and powerful entities richer and more powerful, would be much more wisely spent on many other things. For example, and we'll just use the Iraq war spending and just my state (Illinois) for an example. We could have furnished 48 million homes with renewable energy alternatives. Again, this is just with the money spent for ILLINOIS. The numbers are just astounding. 48,000 more teachers, just in Illinois, just with Illinois' portion of the money spent in Iraq. 14 million more people with health care, just in this state, etc...
So, while you may have a point, I think it's misleading. Redirecting what we spend on these things would have had a MUCH more profound effect on the quality of this country and it's moral standing in the world, which by proxy, makes us safer, happier and richer. The problem is that those that hold the vast majority of power/money in the country will do anything they can to keep the status quo. The current policies in this country promote it (you can start with the Reagan admin). I just think some of us would rather have that changed, than to stop "entitlement programs".
Cultural Differences indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, its almost impossible to count the ways that statement is false. For one thing, the concept of honorable can be very different in different places. It reminds me of the Catholic Church's reaction to priest pedophilia scandals. Canon law enjoins the hierarchy against doing anything that would bring the Church into disrepute, so of course that meant they had to cover it up. In case you didn't notice, that was sarcastic. It takes a special kind of blindness to interpret what would otherwise be a useful rule in such a damaging way.
Same thing here. The Chinese authorities used various kinds of trickery in the opening ceremonies. One you might not have heard of is the children representing 55 ethnic minority groups were all Han (Chinese) children dressed up in ethnic costumes. The constant theme of all these various stories is this: they treat keeping up appearances as a critical matter of national prestige, almost national security.
Now, let's move off the culturally relative topic of honor onto firmer ground of administration. The problem with any system in which the bureaucracies are allowed to manage appearances is that the people in those bureaucracies lose their capacity to recognize irony. Bureaucracies are good at handling complexity, but terrible at subtlety. Too many people taking their cues from other people just like them. Too much groupthink. Any reasonably clever individual would have foreseen that the torch relay business was asking for trouble, and that acting surprised and offended about the inevitable protests would play into the hands of the protesters. If you're a tough guy, when somebody kicks you in the groin, you're supposed to ... raise one eyebrow, or laugh it off or something like that. You don't dance around holding your crotch in one hand and pointing an accusing finger with another and shout "unfair!" That tells everyone the protestors hit you in a weak spot, so if you aren't prepared to take it with a grin, you don't offer them the opportunity.
Any reasonably clever individual could figure out that trying to look even better than you could possibly be during the opening ceremonies would end up with people questioning even the bona fide amazing things you do.
Anybody with enough brains to be a top level government planner could figure out that hanging so much national pride and prestige on something like this, and doing it so transparently, is as good as hanging a sign on your national back saying "Kick me!" But you take all those excellent brains, and you embed them in a bureaucracy nobody's allowed to question, that is hermetically sealed from independent thought and touchy about criticism, and those individually excellent brains end up trudging along together, stuck in the groove of groupthink.
The Olympics might have been everything China dreamed for them to be, if the government had grasped one fundamental and ironic fact: you gain national prestige in something like this by doing really well while acting as if it wasn't important at all. The jingoistic, quasi-religious, neopagan ceremony of the Olympics is a trap. The more you act like this is supposed to be proof of national superiority or virility or something, the less you are measured by what you achieve. People start watching for how far you fall short of what you pretend to be.
Try... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Authoritarian" tyranny. China is not ruled by capitalist trends, though they use that as leverage. It is ruled by a strong, centralized political apparatus.
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Informative)
We have introduced age limits because it is bad for the physical and mental development of younger athletes to compete at such a high level.
It looks like China broke the rules, and the gold needs to be stripped from the effected athletes.
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Informative)
>>It looks like China broke the rules, and the gold needs to be stripped from the effected athletes.
China was also cheating in TKD, with their judges refusing to score good players that would face Chinese athletes next:
http://olympics.thestar.com/2008/article/481950 [thestar.com]
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/taekwondo/story/2008/08/19/f-olympics-taekwondo-gonda.html [www.cbc.ca]
http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=246955&lid=headline&lpos=secStory_main [www.tsn.ca]
http://www.sportsnet.ca/olympics/2008/08/20/olympic_taekwondo_gonda/ [sportsnet.ca]
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Insightful)
Shame on China for cheating. Athletes have been busted individually cheating in the games (doping, for example). But to see systematic cheating abetted by a government, and to see that cheating result in diminished achievement for deserving athletes of any nation (but to be honest, it stings more to see my countrywomen denied) is a tough thing to bear.
Nastia Liukin is a triple gold medalist and Shawn Johnson is a double gold medalist as far as I'm concerned.
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen. +5 insightful (where the fuck are my mod points??)
The thing to debate - in this particular instance - is not the relative 'goodness' or 'badness' of the 16 year old rule, although I do agree with it on a personal level. The fact is that the IOC has the rule, China knew they had the rule going in, they broke the rule, they need to get slapped upside the head.
The girls did a great job and all, but you don't argue the merits of a traffic law while you're driving down the interstate - you go in front of a lawmaker/makers and debate it.
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Amongst other reasons, the age requirement is there because children under the age of 16 don't face the same pressures a 16 year old kid faces. This was thoroughly explained by the coach of the U.S. team. When you're 14, in the opinion of the rule makers, you are much more aware that you are competing in a global arena representing your country. When you're younger you see it as a game and you don't have nearly as much pressure.
3. Add this to the way the Chinese treat the U.S. gymnasts, by making them wait for a long time after they are called. It was done by the 'arena authorities' and not the IOC. They give no explanation why. They only do it to the U.S. gymnasts in the final round.
Add all these together and you get a insatiable lust for winning at any cost, not just a willingness to break "bad rules". China will do whatever it takes to win. Rules only apply to the weak [non communist].
http://www.kansascity.com/495/story/747330.html [kansascity.com]
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/olympics/2008/writers/selena_roberts/08/13/china.gymnasts/?bcnn=yes [cnn.com]
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Value(s) of a Gold Medal (Score:5, Informative)
Whoever is arguing that kids are not allowed into the Olympics because of this ridiculous notion of 'destruction of their bodies' is clearly not informed about the age, at which the gymnasts start their training and when they are allowed to compete in various local, regional, national and international (like world) events. How many medals must a gymnast have before they are even allowed to the Olympics in gymnastics? More often than not, these 'kids' already are world champions.
I and many of my colleagues at work (who are mostly Chinese) agree that the Chinese girls are definitely between 12 and 14 years of age, not anywhere near 16.
Stones Cast In Glass Houses (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me just say, right out of the box, I appreciate that you started off with an ad hominem attack. It really supports your position, and lends credence to your rationale.
You are, however, absolutely correct; the same could be said about steroids. We absolutely have a choice to support the use of steroids and the lie to cover it up, or frown on the use of steroids but actively work to not cover it up. Bodies are ruined by steroids, as are lives, and we have a choice to partake in it or not. Everyone else has that same choice.
Where you start to put words in my mouth is the part about snapping off baby heads. (A minor aside; contrary to popular opinion, babies do not have milky insides.) We absolutely should strenuously object, and even take action against - perhaps even boycotting such multicultural events as the Olympics - people who are engaged in harmful activities against other people. This includes athletes who like the taste of baby meat for the 1% edge it gives them, and authoritarian regimes that raise athletes from birth for a specific event. What we should not do is ignore those actions, or the frameworks that allow for them, and instead focus on rules violation.
It is simply unacceptable that the anger here is at the fact that "China broke the rules!" and not at "China is ignoring human rights!" It's entirely wrongheaded, and why those underlying issues are never addressed.
Finally, since you seemed to not be able to catch my original meaning; I do not find that lying about rule breaking is right action. To the contrary, it's not acceptable. There is a value system, though, wherein it is, and the point in that value system wherein I diverge from having any further iota of agreement is where the decision to lie about the rulebreaking occurs.
To spell it out; I don't agree with having kids in these events - but other people, parents, children, athletes and cultures are going to disagree with this. It's a whole big issue that I'm not addressing. I do agree with breaking rules you find unjust. I don't agree with lying about it - and at that point, when you lie about it, you lose your right to claim a morally viable underlying framework.
One final point, because I feel that your straw man argument regarding the Russians can be turned to something worthwhile saying; if you are actively sabotaging other people - well, clearly you are capable of doing that, but it doesn't lend legitimacy to the victory. Therein lies the problem with China; because we're arguing about the lie, we're lending legitimacy to the way they go about the important things by putting pressure on the minor point; the rule breaking that is, at best, only debatable. If Russia were to grease a pommel horse, well, it would be clear and no one (ok, realistically, few) would count the victory legitimate. When we fail to act ethically we lend legitimacy to others acting unethically.
Re:You are an idiot - here's why. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what it comes down to for me as well. I don't have a strong position on 14-year-olds doing gymnastics.
But what China is doing here - and I don't doubt it for a moment - is behaving dishonorably, pure and simple.
It's like they planted some clear plastic flippers in their swimmer's lane so he could put them on and out-pace his competition. Or giving their boxer a set of brass knuckles. It's cheating and it's pathetic. It says that they knew they were going to lose a fair competition, so they had to win by deception.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Funny)
no,no,no waterboarding was a terrible war crime committed by the Japanese.
The bush administration just uses advanced water based interrogation techniques
Re:Re-education (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe it's called waterboarding in the Bush administration.
Calm down, Guardian reader. For all it's faults, the US is the most staunch defender of free speech. No one is getting tortured for reporting truth to power on US soil.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Insightful)
[citation needed]
Re:Re-education (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that there's no room left, it's just that they vary only by degree.
The only reason we don't mention Saddam in the same breath is that he wasn't any good at hiding and/or whitewashing his crimes. Bush, on the other hand, has been terrifyingly effective.
Re:Re-education (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I don't know if there's necessarily a difference of scale. It might be, but it's not really necessary.
See, I don't know much about China, but at least in the USSR the age of mass deportations and millions of people in Gulag ended with Stalin. Then it evolved in something cheaper, more subtle and more efficient: the idea that anything you say _might_ be recorded somewhere and _might_ be used against you. Not even necessarily by a visit of the secret police. Sure, it _could_ be the secret police too, but maybe it'll be something else. Maybe you'll never fly out of the USSR ever again, because you can't be trusted to come back. Maybe you'll never get a job past a certain level. Maybe it'll bite you in the arse in some other way. Or maybe noone wrote that in your dossier after all. But you don't know.
And you don't know who's spying and reporting on you. Maybe comrade Piotr is really rabidly against the government and you could start building a resistance together. But maybe he's an agent provocateur.
They actually had very few political prisoners past a point. The people held themselves in line admirably, given that Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
I wouldn't be surprised if they actually had less political prisoners than the USA has in gitmo. The actual gulag was more kept as a reminder of what _could_ happen if you really cross the line too far, than as something to be used immediately and lots. Sorta like how the nukes are more for threat value, than actually used in wars.
And I find that the USA had been taking an eerily similar direction during the Bush years. The whole surveillance mania, and the repeated leaks about what else they monitor and try to connect (including laughable stuff like data-mining the grocery purchases for people who buy arab food), it's like they actually _wanted_ people to get the idea that someone's watching and they better behave. Even some of the few terrorism trials, it's like they chose the most laughable and/or most suspiciously looking like entrapment. It almost begs thinking that the moral is, beware of who's asking you dubious stuff, he might be an agent provocateur.
Now I'm not saying it's some deliberate conspiracy to leak them. Probably more like not caring what gets leaked. Give enough minions orders to spy left and right, and you can pretty much count on it that some of them will botch it or run to the press. Which can actually be good if that's the message you actually want to give to your population: watch it, we've got our eyes on all y'all.
Look at the other details about the USSR in that list. Flight restrictions for people they don't like? Check. Done in the USA too. Your pool of available jobs might depend on how much of an politically loyal you make yourself seen as? Check. The Bushies politicized half the government departments. Etc.
Gitmo and torture kept as the ultimate stick, where you probably won't land, but you _might_ if you're really undesirable? Check. Same role as the Gulag had post-Stalin.
Not saying that the USA is a perfect equivalent to the USSR dictatorship... yet. But it looks to me like they've been working real hard to push it in that direction. If given more time, I don't doubt that it would have got a lot worse eventually.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Insightful)
it's sad that people can be so utterly ignorant of the realities of this world that they believe George Bush is the epitome of evil.
You're absolutely right. Bush is not the epitome of evil.
Aside from getting elected president, I doubt Bush has ever been better than a C+ at much of anything. George Bush is the C+ of evil. The the C+ of lie, cheat and steal. This guy gets a hold of Global Power... and with his C+ of evil all he manages to do is manufacture a small war in a bumfuck country, torture a small handful of people, and swell the ranks of terrorist groups across the globe. Bush hasn't even nuked a city. Nuking a city would rate him at least a B+. Unleashing a genetically engineered racially-targeted plague would get him a solid A+ of evil. Or better yet a racially-targeted plague that also only kills males, so that the women can be spared and "rescued" and impregnated to raise half-white properly Christian babies. THAT would earn him the title Epitome of Evil.
Yep. Bush is not the epitome of evil. Bush is the C+ of evil.
-
He IS a Tyrant (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, more accurately, his Administration is tyrannical. It's no Genghis Khan, or Caligula, or even Napolean, but between describing the administration as benevolent and thinking first and foremost of the people or as authoritarian and largely out for the ends of a few the latter clearly wins out.
The guy may not be entirely unredeemable, but it is not inappropriate to (constantly!) remind everyone living under his Administration that he ain't no nice guy.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Funny)
Do you do crafts? Because that's one hell of a strawman you just put together for us.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have to admit that. The left-wing spite for Cheney and his faithful VP Bush is pretty well-deserved and not hard to understand -- we're now fighting two wars in the Middle East, one of which should have ended long ago and the other of which shouldn't have started. The American dollar is weaker than American beer. One after another Constitutional bound has been overstepped and ignored. I can't imagine an administration doing much worse. (It is important to note that Bush/Cheney does not represent ANY of the best traditional qualities of the Republican party. They aren't Republicans, they're Neocons. Might as well be a party of its own.)
On the other side, I live in Massachusetts, bluest of the blue states, and I don't know anyone who actually thinks Obama is gonna march us into the promised land. I support him because his stated ideas are mostly compatible with mine, and I believe him to be quite politically unconnected when compared with McCain and Hillary. The old political network, on both sides of the aisle, has failed me. I want it gone. Obama represents my best chance of that.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Insightful)
What two wars are we fighting? I don't see any declared hostility with any nation
Are you serious? Are you trying to imply that because there hasn't been a technical, formal declaration incorporating the word war that we're supposed to believe you have no awareness of the War in Afghanistan [google.com] or the War in Iraq [google.com]?
I agree there is far too much devisiveness and name calling when it comes to the 2 "sides", but to pretend there aren't any wars going on is just...well...stupid.
Re:Re-education (Score:5, Insightful)
He was genuine. ...
Things like this show me that when people bash someone relentlessly, they often don't know WTF they are talking about. I place you in that group.
Are you seriously trying to argue that because someone is charismatic and gets along well with people in person that they must be "good people" and incapable of doing harm to a country?
Do you realize that you've just described every despot who has ever ruled?
For example, Stalin, Hitler (uh-oh), Mussolini, Mugabe, Marcos, even Sadam - all were or are very charismatic and friendly to the people around them. Just not so friendly to some people whom never got near them.
The Bushes may or may not have been terrible presidents, but charisma and an easy-going nature have nothing to do with their policies and executive decisions.
Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
China has already taken their official stance. They just don't care about the rules and don't care what other people think about it.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
And their stance is about as ridiculous as it gets. They've stated that the girls passports are sufficient proof of their age. (Well, there's slightly more to it than that, but that's what it boils down to.)
Great idea, accept documents created by the very people accused of cheating as proof that they didn't cheat.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine if our courts took the same approach
Defendant: I did not rob that bank. To prove that I am innocent....here's a picture of me in the bank not robbing it.
Judge: That's good enough for me. <bangs gavel> Not guilty!
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Funny)
I was thinking about court.... basically I was wondering who's going to wheel out the "But officer, the Chinese government said she was 16" defense first :P.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
And their stance is about as ridiculous as it gets. They've stated that the girls passports are sufficient proof of their age. (Well, there's slightly more to it than that, but that's what it boils down to.)
Great idea, accept documents created by the very people accused of cheating as proof that they didn't cheat.
Um, well what documents would you want for proof? Birth cert, marriage lic, passports, and DL are all issued by the country that they live in. Are wanting folks to register with the IOC at birth so that they can insure that if you are ever competing in their events that you meet their age requirements?
The IOC has little choice but to accept the national passports as sufficient proof of their age. If a national government wants to fudge some one's age on their passport that's their issue and not IOCs. IOC just accepts the document as presented. It isn't world gov or world cop. If the national govs want to bend/break their own rules, then IOC has to live with it. IOC doesn't have an teeth to beat a national government with and no one really would want it to have any either.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Informative)
It was proved that North Korea altered official documents to allow underage girls to participate in world gymnastic competitions and they are currently bared from participation because of their falsification of documents.
Much like this proof should involve the striping of the Chinese medals and a bar on participation by Chinese competitors in international gymnastics should be imposed, probably in the 4 year range.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Informative)
Does it really matter? Do younger gymnasts have a significant advantage over gymnasts a couple of years older?
In fact it DOES matter. Younger gymnasts do in fact have an advantage. Not to be crude, but puberty is death for an olympic gymnast. Growing boobs and a butt completely throws off the body's center of gravity necessary to do a lot of the tumbling. Thats why you almost never see an olympic gymnast over 21.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
A 33 year old won the silver medal in the vault competition, so it's definitely possible to be successful despite not being prepubescent.
IMO, if you want to prevent young kids from competing in the Olympics for psychological reasons, that's fine. In that case, the age restriction should be consistent across all of the sports. Restricting young kids because they have a physical advantage is lame though. Michael Phelps had an advantage due to his body proportions. Usain Bolt has an advantage because of his long legs. Shawn Johnson's short height helps her be successful. Shouldn't they also be barred from competing because of these advantages?
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:4, Interesting)
There are possible issues regarding an advantage, but I was also under the impression that the rules were (at least partially) there to help protect children from crazy training and undue pressure.
Whatever the case, rules are rules, and the IOC should give out whatever punishment is due. I would assume that some specific action is dictated by their rules in cases where this particular rule has been shown to be broken?
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not an issue of cheating but an issue of keeping children safe.
The minimum age for diving is even younger: 14. So it obviously has nothing to do with protecting children from the pressure of Olympic competition. Anyway, these kids start training when they're very young, often with the explicit intent of trying to get into the Olympics.
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it matter? Only if playing by the rules matters. Would you like to train for something for years, only to be beaten by a cheater?
Re:Nothing will happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Just out of curiosity what document do you have that has your birth date and isn't government issued or based on government issued documents? The closest I can come up with is a birth certificate and it's stored on a mainframe on the first floor of the Texas goverment's Health Deparment building. I'm 100% positive it wouldn't be any more difficult for the government to make me 2 years older than I am.
I imagine so as well (Score:5, Insightful)
The IOC are making themselves look pretty scummy by association at the moment. They seem complicit in various pieces of fraud and dodgy dealings, and perfectly willing to help cover everything up.
But then I've never held them in that high a regard anyway. They're a business and they make the world's governments beg like puppydogs to be allowed to hold their games.
Frankly I find the whole thing to be something of a joke, and an incredible waste of money.
Re:I imagine so as well (Score:5, Insightful)
If it makes you feel better, the IOC has always been scummy.
Re:I imagine so as well (Score:5, Funny)
"People, people, please! You're forgetting what the Olympics are all about:
giving out medals of
beautiful gold,
so-so silver and s
hameful bronze. "
Simpsons
Minimum Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is there a minimum age to begin with? I think if a 14 year old can compete at the level of those a few years older, she should be allowed to. Is the age requirement only in gymnastics? Wasn't Michael Phelps 15 in his first Olympics in 2000?
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Interesting)
It's to do with the safety of the competitors (underdeveloped bones etc.) as gymnastics takes much more of a toll on your body than swimming (being exceedingly hig. I would wager being younger, and lighter, also helps on things like the Asymmetric Bars.
If my recollection of Sanjay Gupta's comments on CNN is of any value, I believe the issue is the opposite, namely that underdeveloped bones confer a real advantage to the athlete (they're more "bendy" in addition to being "lighter").
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Informative)
It's to do with the safety of the competitors (underdeveloped bones etc.) as gymnastics takes much more of a toll on your body than swimming (being exceedingly hig. I would wager being younger, and lighter, also helps on things like the Asymmetric Bars.
If my recollection of Sanjay Gupta's comments on CNN is of any value, I believe the issue is the opposite, namely that underdeveloped bones confer a real advantage to the athlete (they're more "bendy" in addition to being "lighter").
Young competitors are more capable of performing flips and spins and such, but more likely to get injured in competition. This rule was agreed upon by the international gymnastics community due to such injuries.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Insightful)
It's to do with the safety of the competitors (underdeveloped bones etc.)
The safety issue doesn't make sense. All of these girls are competing in Jr. events before turning 16. It's not like they aren't allowed to compete until 16, just not at this level. If it's really a safety issue, they shouldn't be allowed to train or compete until 16.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Informative)
but the jr. events are much lower difficulty in order to have a chance to be competitive, and the jr. events also restrict the difficulties to protect the kids competing. Olympic competition is a lot more dangerous due to the need to execute difficult maneuvers in order to be competitive.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Insightful)
As I understand it, there's a huge performance difference between just a few years, smaller girls rotate faster and are quicker. It's like the difference between weight classes in boxing, you pair like against like.
But more to the point, the rule is the rule. You don't ignore a rule in the competition just because you don't agree with it. The Dolphins can't put 50 guys out on the field just because they suck and think they need the extra help, regardless of what the rules say.
China is cheating, end of story. And the IOC is corrupt, go figure.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't say stuff like that in public, dude.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Informative)
There's a minimum age because FIG (Federation Internationale de Gymnastique) implemented one in 1997:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_gymnastics [wikipedia.org]
Why? Well, it's not conclusive, but this article has some good reasons:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080817014559AAZVAvK [yahoo.com]
It has to do with the culture of the sport (Score:5, Informative)
Even though you have tons of sports in the Olympics, each sport is different, especially in culture.
In order to groom a good gymnast you have to start very young and you have to practice constantly, training for much of her life. You must be physically strong, flexible, have incredible coordination and balance, have low weight and low body fat and be relatively fearless. The types of things female gymnasts are asked to do are best performed by teenage girls who have made a life long career out of gymnastics. The problem is that once you realize this, you press gymnasts to train harder and harder, faster and faster. You get into situations were girls train too much, ignore schooling, get injuries because they push too hard, begin to suffer from bolemia and anorexia, etc. To top it off, you typically only get 1 shot at olympic gold, if at all, because in 4 years your "washed up" because the next girl who comes along is the new star and at 20 you can't do the same things you can at 16. At that young age, all you want to do is get your moment in the spotlight, make your coach and your parents happy, and get your pony. You aren't thinking about your long term future, and most gymnasts don't have a future in gymnastics outside of their teen years. If you look at this culture, women's gymnastics no longer looks like such a pretty sport.
At least in men's gymnastics, they can attend at least two olympics, because their events are based more on strength and men can continue to get stronger past their teen years
Just to paint a little more broad picture, look at swimming this year. There's a 40 year old woman swimming for the american team this year. Phelps has been in two and could be in three olympics. Swimmers train hard, but in general they can get better as they get older, as Phelps did, but gymnasts peak early. When have you seen a woman gymnast in more than 1 olympics? When have you seen a 24 year old female gymnast, much less a 40 year old one?
The point of the rule is a stop gap to prevent downward pressure on the average age of a gymnast, and allow them to grow up at least a little bit in the hopes they can make better decisions for themselves, and so that coaches and countries don't start pushing 12 year olds as gymnasts. A 14 year old is a little more fearless than a 16 year old... in a very bad way. One bad decision could cause severe injury, and pushing a girl that young will have lasting effects on her life, mostly bad. I would not put it past communist regimes like China to have a state run program where they don't care about their girls and create a program which churns out 12-14 year old world class gymnasts who in turn are discarded with severe emotional and physical problems later in life.
So in short, it's their to protect the girls from themselves and everyone else who would push them too hard to early. Personally, I'd want the limit higher, because calling those gymnasts "women" is downright upsetting to me, and they still start incredibly young for a fleeting chance at a bit of stardom.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Interesting)
1. In some areas of gymnastics being young gives you and advantage.
2. The training can be very harmful to young women.
3. It is the rules. You know just like it is a rule that you can not take certain drugs, use certain tennis rackets, and so on.
So these Olympics has really been a show case for China.
It shows that they will say one thing like agreeing to freedom of the press and then do something totally different.
And that they will cheat at the Government level even for something so trivial as winning a game.
Oh and that they think clean air is just not all that important.
Good show.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not like any of the girls competing in gymnastics haven't been training since they were very young anyways....
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Minimum Age (Score:4, Insightful)
A younger age is actually an advantage. 20 is practically considered an aging veteran of the sport.
I think it's funny that the Olympics tests drugs so rigorously, yet not this age rule. Both are biological advantages.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:5, Insightful)
My 3 year old beats me in Limbo every time. He's an amazing competitor, that one.
Choosing from a consistent pool (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking narrowly to the issue of rule-making and rule-enforcement in general, and ignoring he question of the truth of the specific allegations in this specific case:
Any rule not applied fairly is a risk to equal competition. Just because you don't know whether a rule introduces a bias on the outcome does not mean that it doesn't.
For example, let's suppose some country (any country) did have an athlete participating in an event contrary to some rule. It doesn't matter if it's age or drugs or taste in music. If some number of countries select from their entire population and others select from only the people in the approved group, then whether or not any given country was able to show its most competitive face is purely a question of whether the excluded group contains the most competitive person.
Let's suppose the games are closed to anyone who likes hip hop music, for example. Why might it matter if some hypothetical Foozania were to field a swimmer who secretly likes hip hop music when the other countries voluntarily held back? Absent Michael Phelps (we all know from US airtime allotments that there are not really any other swimmers of note in the US), who would be voluntarily withheld because of his professed like of hip hop, the Foozanian swimmer's scores might seem very good. By your reasoning, which seems to amount to absence of competition, he deserves his medal fair and square, right? But if the absence of competition can be caused by uneven application of rules, that's where the problem comes.
But beyond this, there is also a human rights question: Are there sports in which people are pressured at a younger and younger age to get into the sport, before they are ready to make a free choice? Are there sports in which the toll the sport takes on the athlete is damaging before a certain age? These are complex questions of ethics that it seems fair for the Olympic committee to at least consider, so you can understand why there might be such rules. And once there are such rules, my examples above hopefully show why they must be applied fairly in order for the Olympics to mean anything at all.
Re:Minimum Age (Score:4, Informative)
Certainly worth modding up IMHO. She won despite her age, not because she took drugs or anything. I think she deserves her medal. The only scandal here are the documents, not her competing.
I think you're confused.
More like she won because of her age.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/olympics/s_583045.html [pittsburghlive.com]
Some coaches believe younger gymnasts have an advantage over older ones, because they have greater flexibility and a higher strength-to-weight ratio.
Elaine Jewart, owner of Jewart's Gymnastics in the North Hills, said the bodily changes that come with the onset of puberty affect a gymnast's center of gravity and strength-to-weight ratio, putting strain on the body.
Younger gymnasts' bodies are less susceptible to overuse injuries because they haven't been training as long as older gymnasts, according to Penn State women's gymnastics coach Steve Shephard.
In addition to the physiological advantages, younger gymnasts have a psychological edge.
"An athlete at that age has not had as many serious injuries as older ones," said Jason Butts, an assistant women's gymnastics coach at West Virginia University. "They're not as subject to fear from injuries or the knowledge of what they're actually doing."
And there's a ton of articles saying the exact same thing.
how long will the IOC keep a lid? (Score:5, Insightful)
Easy, it depends on how many millions the chicoms pour into their private bank accounts. The IOC is the biggest joke in all of sports.
My question is (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Losing credibility fast. (Score:5, Interesting)
The IOC is going to lose a LOT of credibility over this (as if they have much left to begin with) if they don't do something about it soon.
I wouldn't even mind if they didn't award the gold to the American women. Let them keep the silver, but it needs to be stripped from the Chinese. This is only proof of one of them being underage, but from what I've been reading, it's starting to seem pretty certain that at least 3 of them are underage.
And if China was willing to cheat this blatantly in this event, it makes you wonder what might have been going on behind closed doors with the rest of their athletes.
Crap (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh. I blame the Chinese government for this.
Chinese years vs US years. (Score:5, Funny)
She's 16 in Chinese years, which is 14 is US years.
Re:Chinese years vs US years. (Score:5, Informative)
But Seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
On another Olympics note, does anyone else think there have been an unusually high number of errors in the technical events this year? Perhaps I just wasn't watching that closely in previous years, but I thought there have been an inordinate number of falls (off balance beams), poor landings and other substantial technical failures by the competitors. We've had outstanding performances by the likes of Phelps and Bolt, but otherwise there's been a lot of sucking by these elite athletes.
Re:But Seriously (Score:5, Informative)
It's the new scoring system.
You can get more points for a difficult routine that you perform with a few steps/wobbles than a simpler routing you perform perfectly. So, a double backflip with a twist, ending with a step will give you more points that a "regular" double backflip without a step.
Don't be evil (Score:5, Interesting)
So much for don't be evil...
Don't jump to conclusions. (Score:5, Insightful)
That doesn't mean that Google modified the cache, it just means that the cached version has been modified.
Recall that Microsoft Office applications do not always remove deleted data, and Google's search engine operates on the raw data in a file (which means that Google will return search results that seem less than obvious if you just look at a rendered copy of the file... something search engine spammers find handy). That means if someone in China deleted that row from the spreadsheet, it would still show up in Google's search.
Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
That's strange. Fortunately, we can click on "View as HTML" in the Google cache and see it. However, even though the Google search results indicate that He Kexin is listed in the spreadsheet, when you view Google's cached version, her name no longer appears.
So much for don't be evil...
He is wrong, the google search results in his own screen shots only indicate that the number 1994 is in the spreadsheet. In fact, the blogger is being deliberately deceiving because when you view the actual cache it explicitly tells you that the girl's chinese name is only found in other documents that link to the spreadsheet. It is right there at the top of the page, but his screenshots only show the middle of the page.
See for yourself [google.com]
It is far more likely that baidu is more out of date than google - i.e. the last time google spidered that website, the girl's info had already been wiped so google cached a more recent version of the file while baidu had not yet re-spidered that site and thus still has an older copy in their cache.
Nobody is born on the 1st of January (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously!
If anyone puts the 1st of January as their birth date, it is only because that is the most convenient fake birth date to enter on an HTML form.
01/01/ and then whatever year you need to be to apply for whatever it is you are applying for.
It may be the other way around (Score:4, Informative)
Hacker? (Score:5, Insightful)
Where's the hacking part come in? Give him credit for his search and chinese language skills but hacking?
I don't know about all that (Score:4, Funny)
What I do know, however, is that there needs to be more coverage of women's beach volleyball signals.
Broken Sport (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as someone with no knowledge of the gymnastics, it seems to me that the sport is just broken and this is a symptom of the problem.
Why is it that when women start developing (gasp!), they are hugely disadvantaged in the world of competitive gymnastics? It seems *that* is the fundamental problem, and it doesn't appear to be a problem that's too difficult to solve. To have a women's sport where the best competitors are the farthest thing from actual women seems silly.
Yes, I understand that with the current gymnastic events it is an advantage to be smaller, lighter, not as curvy, etc. But while we cannot control the woman's figure, of course we can control the sport and its events. Why not choose or create events that aren't hindered by a woman's curves or emphasize artistic moves that prefer a adult's center of mass, rather than a child's, etc.?
If the olympic events naturally favor younger girls, then expect more and more younger girls to compete and succeed. To put a restriction which are contrary to nature the sport itself - you are guaranteed they will be protested and circumvented.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A big deal will get made (Score:5, Interesting)
This gossip and tabloid type scandal is perfect for more distraction of the public. Even if nothing happens now, in China- The US news will be plastered.
What war in Iraq?
Dude, the war in Iraq isn't going anywhere.
Neither is the war in Georgia/Ossetia.
And the Olympics are over in a few days.
Everyone with a tv or radio knows that Condi Rice is skipping the closing ceremonies because of emergency NATO meetings about Russian & because Musharraf just resigned.
Part of the reasons the IOC chose China was to shine a spotlight on their censorious, opaque and human-rights-violating ways. The idea being that, if the Chinese government gets enough egg on their face, they might decide anything is better than being humiliated/embarrassed in front of the world. At most, that high wattage bulb is going to be shining for another week.
Re:A big deal will get made (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Everyone with a TV or radio knows that Phelps won 8 medals, when the next season of Stuck-On-An-Island-With-A-Film-Crew starts, and how the evil gas companies are making gazillions of dollars at our expense.
Re:A big deal will get made (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the reasons the IOC chose China was to shine a spotlight on their censorious, opaque and human-rights-violating ways.
Actually, it's much more likely that the IOC chose China because of the rather large bribes which were presented to their selection committee.
That IS how they operate after all. Free dinners, big parties, free alcohol, and free jewelry for their wives or cars for the husbands so they can honestly say "No, I didn't get anything".
I know what you're thinking, and yes, the jewelry should be worth more than the cars if you want to be the winner...
But maybe I'm just being cynical.
Re:A solution (Score:5, Funny)
I say carbon date 'em!
Hand in your geek creds please. Carbon dating only works on dead things, and will only give you the time that has passed since the thing in question died.
Unless you're suggesting that some of the athletes were, in fact, undead.
Re:A solution (Score:5, Funny)
In that case, would cutting their head off and counting the rings work? ;)
Re:A solution (Score:5, Funny)
No, but you would get a cease and desist from the IOC if there were 5 rings.
Re:Even 14 may be a stretch (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the girls on the Chinese team don't look like they've finished puberty - childish faces, no hips, scrawny. Even for Chinese, these athletes would be extreme cases if they were even close to their 'official' age. Cheng Fei is the only one that does. I can't wait to see what they look like in 3 or 4 years.. I guarantee they will all be taller, heavier, and curvier.
While that is probably true, most adult women in China look young compared to what we Westerners are used to. (I lived there for a few years, and I always thought that many of my adult coworkers looked like they were 16 or 17) They are just, in general, shorter, thinner, and less curvey than their western counterparts. So it's hard to judge.
What do Chinese courts have to do with this? (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't about law. This is about the Olympics. At the Olympics, the IOC has the final word on who gets a gold medal, and who doesn't. The 'laws' which are alleged to have been violated are the rules of the IOC, not the rules of Chinese law. What could be done about it is to disqualify the Chinese gymnast, and take away any gold medals which were awarded to her. That would be pretty extreme, and as you say, I doubt that will be done, because China would, as you say, just deny any evidence that she is too young, and brush it off as a clerical error which has been 'corrected'.