Robbed?: post your complaints

[canoner]

how do you know for a fact that they cheated?

His answer is "obviously they cheated".

[cap_111]

I brought up other issues to demonstrate that you, as a matter of fact everyone including me, twist information left and right to justify our preformed beliefs. The difference is some admit our biases, some don't.

I'm clearly biased. I know NBA scouts who run Chinese basketball camps who've told me that China routinely lies about their age requirements. I know previous Chinese gymnasts have admitted to using false passports and lied about their age. Yes those things bias me. I'm also biased that the sun will come up tomorrow. I don't need to be convinced of something with full evidence every time it happens. If China hadn't already been caught cheating at gymnastics in this way in the past and if I didn't know they routinely cheat in basketball to compete in the U20 divisions then maybe I would give them more benefit of the doubt in believing their extraordinarily difficult to believe story.

However, I do know they cheated in the past in gymnastics. I do know they lie about their basketball players ages (or at least it's a commonly held opinion among the Chinese and Americans I know who work with the athletes that they do). Could I be wrong, sure I could be. I really don't think so in this case though.

That's interesting. I didn't know that the Chinese have been caught before for cheating in gymnastics. I read that in the 80s their swimming team has been caught doping, but I haven't read anything about getting caught for gymnastics, and I tried google it but nothing really came up beside this year's olympics. Do you mind posting a link or something to show me when and where and how have the chinese been caught cheating in gymnastics before? Thanks.

And I can't help but want to point out that you raise the absurdity of the possibility that 2 sources can misrepresent the athlete's age, yet you want people to believe that you so happen to know all chinese athletes who have cheated about their age in the past(basketball players and gymnasts), or the key persons who have concrete evidences that they cheated, and having such a close relationship with them so that they'd actually confess to you that they cheated? Could it be true? sure it could be. But I hope you can see why I'm skeptical about how you just so happen to have all the inside information on all the "cheaters".

[canoner]

dougthonus, obviously the discussion is going nowhere. You have not provided any evidence to convince me that is cheating involved, suspicion yes but FAR from conviction, so I choose to keep an open mind. Yeah, I haven't provided any proof to convince you that there is no cheating yet you already made up your mind. It was never my intention to convince you of anything. I merely wanted to pointed out you may be wrong and maybe you should be a bit more open minded and see other possibilities. That is all.

[YiOF]

I brought up other issues to demonstrate that you, as a matter of fact everyone including me, twist information left and right to justify our preformed beliefs. The difference is some admit our biases, some don't.

I'm clearly biased. I know NBA scouts who run Chinese basketball camps who've told me that China routinely lies about their age requirements. I know previous Chinese gymnasts have admitted to using false passports and lied about their age. Yes those things bias me. I'm also biased that the sun will come up tomorrow. I don't need to be convinced of something with full evidence every time it happens. If China hadn't already been caught cheating at gymnastics in this way in the past and if I didn't know they routinely cheat in basketball to compete in the U20 divisions then maybe I would give them more benefit of the doubt in believing their extraordinarily difficult to believe story.

However, I do know they cheated in the past in gymnastics. I do know they lie about their basketball players ages (or at least it's a commonly held opinion among the Chinese and Americans I know who work with the athletes that they do). Could I be wrong, sure I could be. I really don't think so in this case though.

I knew that China has been accused of cheating before, but never convicted. but maybe you know something I don't. But if you can't find anything that proves that China has been caught cheating at gymnastics and in U20 basketball divisions, I have to believing that you are just bull sh*ting your mind off here. Oh btw, saying someone else told you so doesn't count as evidence.

[5DOM]

sorry, it's here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/sport ... ref=slogin

Thanks.

but to me, the article still didn't provide anything concrete in terms of the existence of such interview. I was hoping to see a link to the interview or something b/c it is hard for me to believe that she (Yang Yun) can say that she was underage when competing in the Olympics, on state tv, and there has been no repercussion. (Also, if this is true, is she stupid? Why would she go on national TV and say "I lied" out of nowhere?)

That's like reading on nytimes that Michael Phelps went on an CNN interview and said he took banned drugs, but tested negative, yet nothing has been done to him and I can't find such interview on youtube. Probably not the best example, or even put phelps in the same sentence as banned drugs given his accomplishment, but I"m just trying to explain why it doesn't make sense to me. (so if I offended any phelps fans, I apologize.)

just type "yang yun underage" on google, and you will see enough proofs. i mean new york times is not the most trusted paper, but they wouldnt make up something (that would cause some controversy), would they? yang yun was definitely underage in 2000

to be specific

China has a rich history of age falsification in Olympics competition, especially in gymnastics. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, three years after the minimum age was raised to 16 in gymnastics, Chinese gymnast Yang Yun competed and won a bronze medal in the uneven bars (coincidentally this event is also He's specialty). Yang's passport said she was born on December 24, 1984 and turning 16 in the year of the Games, making her eligible. She later confessed in a television interview that she was only 14 at the time of the competition and that she and her coaches had lied about her age.

As in the case of Yang Yun, the existing records prior to the Olympics -- local registries, athletic records and news articles -- were all correct, whereas the documentation she showed Olympic officials to confirm her eligibility proved to be false. It is no coincidence that He Kexin's passport was issued on February 14, 2008, a mere 6 months before the Olympics.

it's sad that IOC never reverses a decision already made (also see the Korean gymnast who got robbed in Athens). that korean guy deserved a gold medal unlike yang yun who cheated.
ioc is a joke.

and read this:

EXHIBIT A: A China Daily article dated May 23, 2008 titled "Uneven-bars queen the new star in town" about He Kexin. This is the cached version (thanks Google) of the article as seen on August 4, 2008.

EXHIBIT B: The same China Daily article dated May 23, 2008 titled "Uneven-bars queen the new star in town" about He Kexin. This is the version currently available online. As you can see, when compared to EXHIBIT A, everything is identical. Except for one little thing. The state-run newspaper has changed He's age.

EXHIBIT C: A Chinese article written by state-run news agency Xinhua in 2007, and discovered by the great China Digital Times that refers to He Kexin as 13 years old. And though I wasn't a math major, if she was 13 in 2007, then she's 14 this year. Here is an image of the article with a translation from CDT beneath it.

EXHIBIT C: A Chinese article written by state-run news agency Xinhua in 2007, and discovered by the great China Digital Times that refers to He Kexin as 13 years old. And though I wasn't a math major, if she was 13 in 2007, then she's 14 this year. Here is an image of the article with a translation from CDT beneath it.Translation: The thirteen-year-old He Kexin, from Wuhan, met opponent Yang Yilin, who is on the National Team. Amid cheers from her hometown audience, the young girl excellently executed the full set of moves in the finals, and just beat out Yang Yilin, who already had high scores. Lu Shanzhen, the General Coach of the National Gymastic team, also applauded her performance.

EXHIBIT D: An official gymnastics roster dated January 27, 2006 published by the Chengdu government for its City Games, a competition in which He competed. As you'll see from the translated version I have provided, He Kexin's date of birth, according to these government documents, is January 1, 1994.

it's no coincidence that the articles/pages suddenly disappeared.
but then maybe it was just a series of unbelievable mistakes by many organizations. who knows.
the chinse gymnasts are just as innocent as oj simpson

[5DOM]

Within China's domestic sports scene there has been age-fixing as well. Young athletes can be designated as younger than they are so they can dominate in age-based competitions, as was the case with Chinese basketball star Wang Zhizhi, whose age was listed in inter-club competitions as two years younger than he actually was.

Earlier this year, a 14-year-old table-tennis prodigy in eastern Shandong province told me quite cheerfully that she competes as an 11-year-old in provincial and regional age-ranked competitions. Her national identity card, she said, had been changed to reflect the false birth-date. "It's no big deal," she insisted. "Most of my friends do it, too." Her coach, who hadn't been present when I interviewed the girl, denied any age-fixing at the school, although he said he was quite sure it happened at other academies.

[5DOM]

dougthonus, obviously the discussion is going nowhere. You have not provided any evidence to convince me that is cheating involved, suspicion yes but FAR from conviction, so I choose to keep an open mind. Yeah, I haven't provided any proof to convince you that there is no cheating yet you already made up your mind. It was never my intention to convince you of anything. I merely wanted to pointed out you may be wrong and maybe you should be a bit more open minded and see other possibilities. That is all.

You must believe OJ Simpson is innocent.

[canoner]

There is not a kid I've ever met that would ever understate their age. Kids always want to be older.

Yet most American fans were so ready to believe Yi understated his age. Ironic isn't it? It goes back to what I said before: you choose to believe what you believe, depending on when and where, in order to justify your already formed beliefs.

[cap_111]

just type "yang yun underage" on google, and you will see enough proofs. i mean new york times is not the most trusted paper, but they wouldnt make up something (that would cause some controversy), would they? yang yun was definitely underage in 2000

The problem I have with the nytimes article is that, the auther did not state where he /she get this information from. Did he / she watch the the actual interview? Did he / she heard it from a fellow journalist? Did he / she read it on some other websites? I'm trying to make a decision for myself on this issue, so I'd really like to check out the original source for myself to be convinced of what nytimes is claiming. Actually, I may need to go back and recheck the source you posted, as I forgot if it belongs to a blog on nytimes or if it's an actual news article. If it's a blog or a column, I'd discredit it even more as it often times just expresses one person's opinion.

As in the case of Yang Yun, the existing records prior to the Olympics -- local registries, athletic records and news articles -- were all correct, whereas the documentation she showed Olympic officials to confirm her eligibility proved to be false. It is no coincidence that He Kexin's passport was issued on February 14, 2008, a mere 6 months before the Olympics.

Again, from the above quote, it seems like the Yang Yun incident is only brought up b/c of this year's olympics. What I'm curious is that if it is true that she was underage, then when the interview was first conducted, how come nobody said anything?

it's sad that IOC never reverses a decision already made (also see the Korean gymnast who got robbed in Athens). that korean guy deserved a gold medal unlike yang yun who cheated.
ioc is a joke.

See, I actually know something about the Paul Hamm incident. and I believe this is an entirely differernt situation. Paul Hamm was rewarded the gold medal based on a judging error, and b/c the korean gymnast Yang Tae-young's coach has protested too late, ioc has refused to reverse the decision and only awarded Yang a bronze medal. That is very differernt from being caught cheating. to say that "ioc never reverses a decision already made" and use the paul hamm incident as an example is a completely false statement, and extremely misleading for someone who doesn't know the details of the Hamm story. IOC has taken back plenty of medals before for violating anti-doping rules, and other reasons, I think taking back medals from PROVEN undeserving athletes is exactly what the IOC would do.

the chinse gymnasts are just as innocent as oj simpson

I really appreciate you listing and quoting a lot of information and answering some of my questions, but to say things such as above really discredit a lot of things you said previously.

[Blame Rasho]

There is not a kid I've ever met that would ever understate their age. Kids always want to be older.

Yet most American fans were so ready to believe Yi understated his age. Ironic isn't it? It goes back to what I said before: you choose to believe what you believe, depending on when and where, in order to justify your already formed beliefs.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,865 ... 69,00.html

Basketball

China admits to age fraud

A SENIOR Chinese basketball official admits China had been guilty of fielding over-aged players in youth internationals.

"I'm sorry to say that some of our past results from international youth games were not real as we had some over-aged players in the squads," Xinhua quoted Zhang Xiong, director of the training and research department of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), as saying today

Oh nooz....

[cap_111]

dougthonus, obviously the discussion is going nowhere. You have not provided any evidence to convince me that is cheating involved, suspicion yes but FAR from conviction, so I choose to keep an open mind. Yeah, I haven't provided any proof to convince you that there is no cheating yet you already made up your mind. It was never my intention to convince you of anything. I merely wanted to pointed out you may be wrong and maybe you should be a bit more open minded and see other possibilities. That is all.

You must believe OJ Simpson is innocent.

IMHO, believe someone is innoncent and not convinced someone is quilty are two different things.

I'm not convinced that Jordan van der sloot is the killer of Natalee Holloway.
I'm was NEVER convinced that the Duke Lacrosse players commited rape.

while I'm still looking for evidence, I'm not convinced that the Chinese gymnastic team has cheated.

Innocent until proven guilty, I believe that's what seperate us from Nancy Grace.

[Yao_noodle]

team of dopers complaint about team of false agers?
wow, that's complicated. no wonder it reached 8 pages and is going on.


get a life, whiners and haters.

[cap_111]

There is not a kid I've ever met that would ever understate their age. Kids always want to be older.

Yet most American fans were so ready to believe Yi understated his age. Ironic isn't it? It goes back to what I said before: you choose to believe what you believe, depending on when and where, in order to justify your already formed beliefs.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,865 ... 69,00.html

Basketball

China admits to age fraud

A SENIOR Chinese basketball official admits China had been guilty of fielding over-aged players in youth internationals.

"I'm sorry to say that some of our past results from international youth games were not real as we had some over-aged players in the squads," Xinhua quoted Zhang Xiong, director of the training and research department of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA), as saying today

Oh nooz....

That's a good link. Thanks. Also, in the same article, actually, right after what you had quoted, it says:

"But from now on, we promise to have real under-18 or under-20 national teams compete in our internationals."

and the article is dated November of 2006. So if we were to believe this senior official, does that mean we should not have any questions about the age of the Chinese basketball players after 2006?

[Blame Rasho]

So we have to have good faith believe that China will never change birthdays in their best interest, when they have admitted to changing dates of their athletes? Sure... You think they would say something differently after admitting? It is like a kid who is caught cheating, and then says I will never do it again... Do we believe the kid at his word no matter what? No.

[YiOF]

team of dopers complaint about team of false agers?
wow, that's complicated. no wonder it reached 8 pages and is going on.


get a life, whiners and haters.

I say the chinese are smarter in this contest, at least there is no test to detect how old you are.

[cap_111]

So we have to have good faith believe that China will never change birthdays in their best interest, when they have admitted to changing dates of their athletes? Sure...

so you are suggesting that we believe them when they say they cheated, and not believe them when they say they won't cheat again, when they have said all that in the same sentence? ok...

[Blame Rasho]

So we have to have good faith believe that China will never change birthdays in their best interest, when they have admitted to changing dates of their athletes? Sure...

so you are suggesting that we believe them when they say they cheated, and not believe them when they say they won't cheat again, when they have said all that in the same sentence? ok...

No... It is quite simple. China has changed birthdays due to get a completive advantage. Why should we in good faith believe them when an age issue is brought up, when they have cheated?

[cap_111]

No... It is quite simple. China has changed birthdays due to get a completive advantage. Why should we in good faith believe them when an age issue is brought up, when they have cheated?

then we can never compete with the Chinese again if we just think that since they once cheated, they will always cheat.

I undrestand that it is your opinion that the Chinese are cheaters, that they once cheated, and they will cheat again. You presented a news article to prove your point, which is great. As I now know that at least for Chinese basketball they've had a record of cheating. But I disagree in the part where if you were to present a news article to prove your point, pick and choose what you label as "true" and what you lable as "false" from the same article doesn't exactly strengthen your arguement.

But anyways, I'm not here to argue. I only chimed in the discussion b/c I was curious if anyone can enlighten me why the same questions haven't been raised about the Japanese team b/c they are of the same height and weight, and got caught up in a couple conversations. while I am still looking for :

1. why the same questions haven't been raised about the japanese team
2. video and link to the video of the Yang Yun interview on national TV where she said she's 14 when she competed in the 2000 Olympics.
3. links or proofs that the chinese gymnastic team has been caught cheating before

I do realize that most of the arguements here is some variation of "the Chinese cheated because they are cheaters". So I'm going to end my discussion on this topic here. Thanks everyone.

[dacher]

I don't have good faith in media, governments, even less so in unknown bloggers, self-proclaimed muckrakers, chain-letters from China or USA or anywhere else. From what I saw, the Chinese gymnasts earned every medal they got.

There is so much media driven drama stories based on fabrications and shady testimonial sources that so often eventually fizzles to nothing, that I'm not going with the media frenzy. I'll wait and see what official word come up with, and decide if I feel it compelling.

[5DOM]

just type "yang yun underage" on google, and you will see enough proofs. i mean new york times is not the most trusted paper, but they wouldnt make up something (that would cause some controversy), would they? yang yun was definitely underage in 2000

The problem I have with the nytimes article is that, the auther did not state where he /she get this information from. Did he / she watch the the actual interview? Did he / she heard it from a fellow journalist? Did he / she read it on some other websites? I'm trying to make a decision for myself on this issue, so I'd really like to check out the original source for myself to be convinced of what nytimes is claiming. Actually, I may need to go back and recheck the source you posted, as I forgot if it belongs to a blog on nytimes or if it's an actual news article. If it's a blog or a column, I'd discredit it even more as it often times just expresses one person's opinion.

As in the case of Yang Yun, the existing records prior to the Olympics -- local registries, athletic records and news articles -- were all correct, whereas the documentation she showed Olympic officials to confirm her eligibility proved to be false. It is no coincidence that He Kexin's passport was issued on February 14, 2008, a mere 6 months before the Olympics.

Again, from the above quote, it seems like the Yang Yun incident is only brought up b/c of this year's olympics. What I'm curious is that if it is true that she was underage, then when the interview was first conducted, how come nobody said anything?

it's sad that IOC never reverses a decision already made (also see the Korean gymnast who got robbed in Athens). that korean guy deserved a gold medal unlike yang yun who cheated.
ioc is a joke.

See, I actually know something about the Paul Hamm incident. and I believe this is an entirely differernt situation. Paul Hamm was rewarded the gold medal based on a judging error, and b/c the korean gymnast Yang Tae-young's coach has protested too late, ioc has refused to reverse the decision and only awarded Yang a bronze medal. That is very differernt from being caught cheating. to say that "ioc never reverses a decision already made" and use the paul hamm incident as an example is a completely false statement, and extremely misleading for someone who doesn't know the details of the Hamm story. IOC has taken back plenty of medals before for violating anti-doping rules, and other reasons.

the chinse gymnasts are just as innocent as oj simpson

I really appreciate you listing and quoting a lot of information and answering some of my questions, but to say things such as above really discredit a lot of things you said previously.

i dont agree with you at all either.
1. i dont understand why you keep refusing to believe yang yun being underage when noone has a problem with it. i mean do you have to know the source of everything? also im sure the chinese and yang yun herself would have gone crazy if this was some made up bs.
2. im sorry, but IOC should have reversed the call and that korean gymnast should have been awarded the gold medal whether or not his coach protested late. the koreans actually officially protested to the FIG later, and FIG acknowledged their mistakes but nothing was done. see i actually know something about hamm incident, because one of my best buddies is korean, and he went crazy in 2004. and he's telling me that their womens' handball team got robbed yet again today. i don't know how or if they actually got robbed, but that's a different story.

I think taking back medals from PROVEN undeserving athletes is exactly what the IOC would do.

not really. paul hamm absolutely did not deserve his gold. he should just thank the 3-4 judges who made the mistakes.