Thu, Aug 07, 2008 page20

• Age firestorm, fans turn up the heat on Chinese gymnasts

  • AFP
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  China’s highly rated gymnastics team heads into the Olympics battling allegations that three of its female members are underage and with enormous pressure from home fans demanding nothing less than gold.
  
  

  The Chinese team has a glittering record at world championships but has struggled at the Olympics, snaring just one gold in Athens four years ago.
  
  

  With gymnastics golds seen as a major contributor towards China’s dream of topping the Olympic medal tally for the first time, expectations are high among the public and a government that funds a vast network of state-run academies.
  
  

  

  Jiang Yuyuan of China performs on the vault during the World Cup gymnastics competition in Shanghai, China, on July 28 last year. According to recent reports, Jiang might be too young to participate in the Beijing Olympics.

  PHOTO: AP

  The demand for a dramatic improvement is such that China’s head coach Huang Yubin (黃玉斌) last week joked there would be dire consequences if the team failed again.
  
  

  “If we win only one gold again, I will jump off the highest building,” Huang told the China Daily.
  
  

  But China has been accused of bending the rules in its quest for glory, with allegations that some of the women’s team members are younger than the age 16 minimum set by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).
  
  

  Due to concerns about the wellbeing of young gymnasts whose bodies are under huge stress when they reach the elite level, FIG introduced a rule in 1997 saying they had to turn 16 during an Olympic year to compete at the Games.
  
  

  The New York Times reported last month that online records showed two members of China’s women’s team, He Kexin (何柯欣) and Jiang Yuyuan (江鈺源), may be only 14.
  
  

  The age of a third athlete, Yang Yilin (楊伊琳), then came into question when the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) Web site posted a profile indicating she too was 14.
  
  

  China has denied anything is out of order, saying ID and legal documents show He and Jiang meet the minimum age requirement, while also dismissing the CCTV profile as simply wrong.
  
  

  International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge laid responsibility for enforcing the age limit on China’s national gymnastics federation last week when asked if he was concerned the incorrect ages may have been supplied.
  
  

  “The International Olympic Committee relies on the international federations, who are exclusively responsible for the eligibility of an athlete,” he said.
  
  

  During the controversy, China has shielded its female gymnasts from direct media scrutiny, refusing to put them forward at press conferences in Beijing.
  
  

  Women’s head coach Lu Shanzhen (陸善真) said the reluctance to face the press was because his charges were camera shy, not because there was anything to hide.
  
  

  “They will feel stress if the journalists keep throwing questions like ‘which medal do you think you can get?’ They were trained in a closed environment. Even if we want to change, it needs some time,” he said.
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