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Alicia Sacramone, 20 (left) is visibly shaken after making an error.
This morning I read an article talking about the results of this competition and I notice on the messageboard portion of ESPN there was considerable debate on the subject of age. Apparently, some of the gymnasts on China’s female team may have been under the minimum age of 16. I’m not sure exactly why there is a minimum age, but there is and it’s 16.
What evidence exists that some of these Chinese gymnasts are ineligible to compete? Well, first off they look young. In comparison to their American counterparts, the Chinese gymnasts are considerably shorter, lighter, and less curvy. They also have more youthful looking faces as judged by most people. One gymnast supposedly was missing a tooth (presumed to be a missing baby tooth).
Although it’s quite easy to, we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. No one can accurately discern someone’s age just by their appearance. On the issues of height, weight and body shape, I believe on average, American women are taller and heavier than Chinese women, so I don’t believe it’s a good assumption to say a Chinese woman is younger simply because she’s smaller than an American woman. The missing tooth could be a baby tooth…or it could be a adult tooth that was knocked out. You can’t tell what kind of tooth it was simply by looking at the gap in her smile.
Shawn Johnson of the US (left) is 4'9" and 16 years old.
He Kexin of China is 4'8" and 16, but was reported to be 13 as recently as 9 months ago.
Shawn Johnson again - close up.
The 3 girls circled are the ones who are suspected of being under 16. I believe He Kexin is the one on the left.
Looking at the 4 pictures above I, for one, can't conclusively say one looks older than the other. Even looking at the close-ups all I can say is that Shawn Johnson looks Caucasian and He Kexin looks Chinese.
Anecdotally, I have a friend who is quite petite – she’s 4’11 and can’t weigh more than 80 pounds. She has a very youthful looking face and she can fit into clothes made for kids – she just turned 30 recently. Another time I was talking with a friend of a friend who I had met for the 2nd time. He was telling me about his siblings one of which was 12 years younger than him and was in college – I did a quick mental calculation assuming he was my age and it didn’t add up – he was actually in his 30s. Whoops.
Now the more compelling evidence is that there have been government news agency reports that list members of the Chinese women’s gymnastics team being as young as 13. These reports were published less than 1 year before the Olympics, so if they were accurate the oldest these members could be now would be 14.
The problem with this evidence is that it can be easily denied. The Chinese government can simply say the previous new agency report was incorrect and that the gymnasts are actually 16. Age is verified using government-issued passports as well, so the veracity of those is questionable as well.
Many people simply don’t believe that the passports are accurate. The problem is that all this speculation over whether or not the government is being deceptive can’t be pushed aside unless there is some neutral 3rd party that can find an independent method to verifying the gymnasts’ age.
Should the US be leading this effort? Absolutely not. It should be led by the IOC or some committee that doesn’t have an obvious national interest. If an American led probe determined the Chinese gymnasts were underage the results might be dismissed as biased by a sore loser. In order for the results to remain credible a neutral party must be used.
We certainly don’t want to start a witch hunt where full scale probes must be launched every time a gymnast who looks like she’s 15 steps out on the floor, but in the case of blatant inconsistencies in the reporting of ages, investigations should be conducted.
If a 3rd party investigation conclusively establishes that China used ineligible athletes, their medals should be stripped and awarded to the US. There should also be some neutral 3rd party form of age identification to prevent future violations of the rule.
Lastly, I have to say that unless age restrictions are in place to protect developing athletes from physical harm, they should not be used. For example, I’ve heard of youth baseball leagues prohibiting pitchers from using certain pitches as they may cause permanent arm/shoulder damage in youngsters. But if the age restriction is not there to prevent damage to the athletes’ bodies then it should be lifted as to allow the best athletes to compete.
If you’re 15 years old and you’re the best gymnast in the world, you should be competing at the Olympics instead of sitting at home watching them on TV. After all, the summer games are only every 4 years and by the time you’re 19 you’re a relative geezer in the gymnastics world. I don’t want to go flying off on a tangent about affirmative action but the message is simple – may the best man or woman win.
To wrap it up:
1. A 3rd party, neutral committee should investigate any age violations.
2. If China is found guilty of using ineligible athletes, the medals should be stripped.
3. Age restrictions that aren’t in place solely to prevent physical harm to athletes should be removed.
4. People should stop jumping to conclusions about peoples’ ages until more definitive evidence is provided.
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5 comments:
I don't agree with your comment that age restrictions should be removed from the Olympic competitions. Girls aged under 16 competing against young women that age and older isn't fair on many levels. First off when you are younger you aren't dealing with the increased hormones which changes everything in a young woman's body, mind, and spirit. Imagine the shift in a females center of gravity after getting hips and boobs. It simply isn't fair to expect young woman to compete against younger, lighter weight girls. Secondly, younger girls bodies haven't taken the beatings that a young woman three or 4 years older has and will have less chronic injuries as a result. Thirdly, the brain of a 13 or 14 year old girl is wired differently than a young woman of 16 or 18. Younger people don't feel their mortality the same way as those who are older than them. (This is why we don't give 12 or 13 year olds driver licenses!) In other words their fear factor of getting injuries and of failure is much less. Younger girls simply won't feel the pressure as intensely as an older female. China should have played by the same rules as everyone else. The current Gold all around female would have loved to compete in the last Olympics before she had several physical injuries to contend with. She wasn't allowed to.
Good comment. As I said before, I am in favor of removing age restrictions as long as they aren't in place to protect the athletes' bodies from harm.
You bring up several good points about why younger gymnasts might perform better than older gymnasts but you don't really state that the age limit is in place to protect the athletes' from harm.
If the restriction is solely there to 'level the playing field' it should be removed. The goal of the gymnastics competition should be to showcase the most skilled gymnasts in the world and if certain physical and mental advantages associated with age are present they should be utilized.
If the points you're saying are true, in general female gymnasts would reach their peak performance prior to the age of 16. And again, in the Olympics we wish to hold competitions to determine who is the best performer. Therefore it would not make sense to put in place a rule which would generally prohibit the best athletes from competing.
Imagine a similar situation - let's say horse racing. Assume the optimal age for a racehorse is 2-3 years old. If we suddenly put in a rule saying that a horse must be at least 5 years old to race solely because 2-3 year olds would have mental/physical advantages over older horses we would be artificially lowering the quality of the race. Only if we permitted all horses to race would the cream rise to the top.
I agree, all countries should play by the rules. China hasn't been found in violation of the rules yet, but a neutral third party should conduct an investigation into the matter.
Once again, thanks for the well written comment.
I misspelled Dera's name the first time I sent this. Sorry!
Horses are not human. They don’t have human consciousness, a human’s life span, or free will. An extremely lucky and well-taken care of horse with good genes might live to be 30. Racehorses generally live much shorter lives being put down often before their teens due to fatal injuries incurred while racing. Humans on the other hand can live to be 100 and if they are Dera Torres, win medals in the Olympics in their early 40’s. Our long life span gives us many opportunities to do many things and lots of time to do it in. For one thing we as human adults can make decisions about what we want to do with our lives. We can decide to become a gymnast, farmer, doctor, and any number of things. Horses are lovely creatures but they are, as the bible says, beasts of burden and therefore can’t choose what they do. They are owned. Not allowing children to compete in the Olympics is rational, compassionate thinking. An age requirement allows enough time to elapse so the child turning adult can think a little more clearly about what they really want outside of the pressures which others may have been putting on them their whole young lives. In that time they might decide that they don’t want to be a famous gymnast and instead would rather be a farmer or doctor.
Children and adults are different in so many ways that it is not fair to either group to have them compete against each other. Leveling the playing field and keeping things as fair is possible is also part of it. We as adults and even young adults are supposed to mentor children not out compete them on the gym floor just as children are supposed to look up to adults not try to out compete us on the gym floor or anywhere else. Allowing something like that to happen would be bad for everyone, the children, the adults, and the global community at large. Children have many opportunities to compete against each other in sports in abundant junior competitions. This helps make sure that scores of young girls and boys won’t be being milled through training gymnasiums, being used up at very young ages, before they can think for themselves and defend their humanity for the sake of a countries honor.
Leveling the playing field, keeping things as fair as possible, and keeping the global community from abusing children’s right to a childhood are in my opinion all part of the same enlightened, compassionate ideal.
Another thoughtful comment. You have a good point about age restrictions and giving the children the freedom to choose what they want to do.
However, that is dependent on the assumption that governments will not 'force' children to train in something at a early age, regardless of age limits.
For example, let's say a government selects gymnasts for training at the age of 5. There is no minimum age limit for the Olympics.
Now imagine a minimum age of 16 is enacted. Does that mean that government will now delay its selection of gymnasts until some age after 5?
Not necessarily and I doubt it would happen. I believe regardless of the presence of a minimum age limit governments will select gymnasts for training at a young age (perhaps one that precedes the ability to decide if one really wants to pursue training).
Is this necessarily a bad thing? I don't think so. I think it's general knowledge that elite athletes in sports such at gymnastics start their training early...way before their teens.
The other point I wish to address is that of choice. Children aren't born capable of making decisions in their best interest. A simple, but effective example is getting children to eat vegetables. I'd wager that most 4 and 5 year olds, given the choice, would decide never to eat anything green - hell, they could subsist on a diet of chocolate and french fries. But is this the best option? Of course not - we force our kids to eat things they may not enjoy because they are good for them.
Now gymnastics training is not eating vegetables, but my point remains the same. Kids don't always know what's best for them. Perhaps the first time they try gymnastics they hate it - but years later they thank you for pushing them beyond their initial doubts.
To wrap it up again - I don't believe minimum age restrictions cause governments to delay the start of athlete selection/training and secondly, kids don't always know what they want or what is best for them.
[i]interesting, i will come back later on[/i]
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