Sat, Sep 27, 2008 page19

• FIG extends its probe of China’s gymnastic team

  DATE OF BIRTH? Scandals over allegations that some gymnasts were underage in Beijing have broadened to include investigations of the country’s 2000 squad

  • AP
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  The investigation into the eligibility of the Chinese women’s gymnastics team at the Beijing Olympics has been expanded to include members of the 2000 squad, which won the bronze medal in Sydney.

  International gymnastics officials are examining whether Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao, in particular, were old enough to compete.

  “If we had a look at all the articles that came before, during and after the Games, there were always rumors about the ages of China’s athletes in Sydney,” Andre Gueisbuhler, secretary general of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), said on Wednesday.

  

  China’s gymnast gold medal winner He Kexin, left, and China’s bronze medalist Yang Yilin are pictured during the medal ceremony for the uneven bars apparatus finals at the Beijing Olympics on Aug. 18.

  PHOTO: AP

  “We did not have another choice,” he said. “If we want to remain credible, then we have to look into things.”

  No other Chinese teams are being investigated, Gueisbuhler said.

  The investigation is ongoing, a month after the Beijing Games ended, and there is no timetable for when it will be finished.

  “It’s a work in progress,” said Emmanuelle Moreau, spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC). “Until the work has been completed, there is nothing we can say.”

  Zhang Hongliang, a media officer for the Chinese Gymnastics Center, which oversees the Chinese national team, said he didn’t know anything about an investigation into the Sydney athletes. The center would “promptly provide information” to the FIG, Zhang said.

  SLIP OF THE TONGUE

  Yang said a debate over her age, which stemmed from a television interview, was the result of a slip of the tongue.

  In the interview in June last year that aired on state broadcaster China Central Television, Yang said she was 14 at the Sydney Games.

  Gymnastics rules require athletes to be 16 during an Olympic year in order to compete.

  “At the time I was only 14,” she said in Chinese. “I thought that if I failed this time, I’ll do it again next time. There’s still hope.”

  That interview, which has been widely reported, contradicts her official birthdate, which is listed as Dec. 2, 1984, and made her eligible for Sydney.

  “Everyone has misspoken before. On television shows, there are always slips of the tongue,” Yang said on Thursday, declining to comment further.

  Dong’s birthdate is listed as Jan. 20, 1983, making her 17 at the time of the Sydney Games. Her blog, however, includes a reference to being born in 1985.

  When reached by reporters, Dong did not deny that her blog says she was born in the Year of the Ox, which would be 1985.

  But she refused to answer any questions about her age, saying: “I’ve left the gymnastics team.”

  “If the FIG wants to investigate this matter, I will provide every form of documentation,” she said.

  Yang is now engaged to Olympic all-around champion Yang Wei. Dong was a national technical official at the Beijing Olympics, serving as the secretary on vault. She was not part of any judging panel.

  Kui Yuanyuan, Ling Jie, Liu Xuan and Huang Mandan were the other members of China’s 2000 squad.

  MINIMUM

  Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, after the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15. It was raised to its current 16 in 1997.

  There were questions about the ages of China’s Beijing squad months before the games, with media reports and online records suggesting several of the gymnasts on the six-woman squad might be as young as 14.

  But Chinese officials insisted — repeatedly and heatedly — that all of its gymnasts were old enough, and they had not cheated their way to their first Olympic team gold. The FIG and IOC hoped the matter had been put to rest before the games, when the IOC said it had checked all of the girls’ passports and found them to be valid.

  The controversy never went away, though, and the IOC announced three days before the Games ended that it had asked the FIG to investigate one more time.
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