Zero Tolerance for Sloppiness: China's Age-faking problem
Friday, 30th July 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
China is taking a zero-tolerance stance and adopting new measures to ensure its athletes meet age requirements for international competition, said Cai Zhenhua, vice president of the State General Administration of Sport, according to this report in China Daily. Cai says that the new approach starts with the upcoming Youth Olympics August 14 to 26 in Singapore. Athletes have been asked to furnish six different forms of ID, listed by China Daily as: "birth certificates, ID cards, passports, domestic athlete registration cards and domestic and international authentication for competitions."
Yi Jianlian's high school ID, listing him as born in 1984
The article adds that "athletes under 16 have also undergone bone-age checks through nuclear magnetic resonance." China Daily not explain why athletes who claim to be over 16 aren't required to take the tests.
But how much can these new regulations really do to solve China's age-faking problem? The country's national teams aren't generally thought to be the source of the practice. It begins much earlier in athletes' careers, when they are competing for their provinces. Leaders of those teams receive bonuses tied to performance in national and international competition. These bonuses can represent a major portion of their pay, so there is a strong incentive to shave a couple of years off (in sports like basketball and soccer, so players can enter youth competition for longer) or tack a couple on (in sports like diving and gymnastics, where young girls' flexible bodies are an advantage).
No doubt China wants to avoid future embarrassment like it experienced when the International Olympic Committee stripped its 2000 Olympic women's gymnastics team of a bronze medal after determining Dong Fangxiao had competed under a falsified age.
But I have a hard time believing that sports administration officials really care whether athletes are telling the truth about their age—they just want them to stop getting caught.
Dong was busted because of her own careless mistake. When she applied to be an official at the 2008 Olympics, she provided her real birth year, 1986, instead of the 1983 date that she had used to register for the Sydney Olympics. Others have been caught with a secondary form of ID that carries their real age. In 1999, Wang Zhizhi was picked up by the Dallas Mavericks despite his reported birth date making him too young to be drafted by an NBA team. The Mavericks had access to the center's military ID, with correct age (two years older), thanks to a Beijing-–based Nike employee. Yi Jianlian, who plays for the NBA's Washington Wizards, is widely thought to be two years older than his official birth year of 1987 indicates; two years ago, Chinese reporters dug up an old high school ID that listed his birth date as 1984. In all of these cases, a more careful scrubbing of history would have kept the athletes' secrets buried deeper.
Whether the administration really wants to make sure that its teams are compliant, I can't say for sure. But I am willing to bet that what lower-ranking and provincial sports officials will hear is this: "If you want to fake ages, you'd better start covering your tracks."
Yi Jianlian high school ID image: Sohu.com
Tags: age faking, cheating, Dong Fangxiao, gymnastics, sports administration, Wang Zhizhi, Yi Jianlian
Around the Web: Leader calls Chinese kids unfit, Liu Xiang stumbles, underage gymnasts
Monday, 8th March 2010 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Sports leader: Chinese kids need to shape upChinese children need to get in better shape, with nothing less than national security at stake. So said Beijing Sports University president Yang Huan, addressing the annual all-government meeting, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, which recently got underway in Beijng. In an effort to funnel more funds to youth sports and fitness, Yang raised concern that China's young people lag behind other nations'. He pointed out one rival in particular: "If there was another war against Japan, would the younger Chinese be able to fight the Japanese one-on-one?" (Reuters: Chinese youth accused of not being fit
Liu Xiang a star attraction at political meet, not so hot at track meet
Several athletes serve on the CPPCC, which lasts about another week. Among them is hurdler Liu Xiang. Liu missed last year's meeting because he was in the United States rehabilitating from foot surgery. After a promising return to action last fall, where he lost in a photo finish at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix, Liu's comeback seems to be stumbling a bit. He came in fourth at a recent 60-meter hurdle race in Shanghai against all Chinese runners. The former world record holder insists that he just slowed down at the end to protect his foot for the upcoming world championships in Doha, Qatar, starting March 12. But this quote from a China Daily story doesn't sound promising: "If I want to push myself, I can surely do it, but it makes me feel uncomfortable in the foot."
The world will soon find out just what condition he is in, as he joins his first major international competition since pulling out of the Olympics due to injury. Also going to Qatar are the USA's Terrence Trammell and Dayron Robles of Cuba, the current world record holder and the man Liu has said he expects to win in Doha.
To see the awkward, disappointing way in which local media cover Liu at the CPPCC, cue this China Daily video
Chinese gymnast age fraud: Throwback edition
Age fraud hit China's gymnastics program again last week, but this time it focused on Dong Fangxiao, who won a bronze medal in the team event at the Sydney Games in 2000. The International Gymnastics Federation has recommended that the International Olympic Committee take back her medal (Reuters, saying they believe she was not 16 years old at the time. The Chinese Gymnastics Association said it intends to appeal, and that there is "insufficient evidence that Dong Fangxiao has age problems when participating in competition in 1999 and 2000."
Tags: 110m hurdles, Dong Fangxiao, gymnastics, Liu Xiang