Truemors
Opinion
We should not be surprised to hear that three of China's women gymnasts are not actually old enough to be participating in the 2008 Olympics. After all, the Chinese are good at cheating and they will tell you so unabashedly. Some months ago, I wrote an article entitled Cheating in China — It's an Epidemic in which I explained how cheating is viewed as a way to survive in China. I have had dozens of Chinese students and adults alike tell me that they have cheated often and that they will cheat again if it means that they could 'get ahead' in life. Quite simply, cheating is a part of the culture here and this fact has been confirmed by many of my Chinese students and friends.
Only the Chinese themselves could possibly believe that the three gymnasts in question, Yang Yilin, He Kexin, and Jian Yuyuan, are sixteen years of age. There is a growing mountain of evidence from archived Chinese newspaper articles as well as local competition records, that these girls were not eligible to compete this year. Combining this evidence with the fact that these girls simply look far too young, there is little doubt in my mind that the Chinese women's gymnastics team should not have been given a gold medal on Thursday.
If it is proven that these girls were in fact too young to participate in the 2008 Olympics, I hold the Chinese government and the IOC directly responsible for this deception. The Chinese government issues passports to its citizens. Someone in the government purposely 'overlooked' or simply 'changed' certain information to make sure that the passports displayed ages that would make the girls eligible for the Games. The IOC should have known better than to accept passports as the only means of verifying athletes' ages. In a country like China, were few see anything immoral or unethical about cheating, such a policy by the IOC was basically inviting China to try to pull something off like this.
"America is making this up," a Chinese friend told me today. "Of course the girls were old enough to compete. People always criticise the gold medal winners." Do they? I did not hear or read about anyone criticizing Chinese athlete Yang Wei yesterday after he dramatically won the gold medal in men's gymnastics. The fact is, the whole world recognizes that this has been a great week for Team China. Nevertheless, cheating is cheating and China should not be given a free pass just because this is its first time to host the Olympic Games.
Even when they are faced with evidence of cheating from their own media, the Chinese people will undoubtedly accuse America and the rest of the world of trying to sabotage their precious Olympic Games. So what? The IOC, which has so far been silent on the issue, needs to 'step up to the plate' and begin investigating this matter immediately. If the IOC does not live up to its responsibilities, then it may very well be allowing China to sabotage the Olympic hopes of other countries.
Robert Vance is editor at TeachAbroadChina.com
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