“Chinese gymnastics team have won 17 golds in the previous Olympic Games, to which gymnasts from Hubei province contributed seven of them. Given the current situation in Hubei, how can I not be worried?” said Huang.

The head coach also noted that Chinese gymnastics has been suffering from “inner attrition” very badly in the last ten years. The new-found talent famine, according to Huang, is due to some structural problems and infightings [among teams at various levels].

“That China won 6 golds at the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Champs is only superficial, you all can’t see the crisis behind it!”

Huang said these words one week after the International Gymnastics Federation issued their decision to strip a gold medal won by team China at the Sydney Games after finding out there’s a “presumed violation of the age limit for participation” in the case of Dong Fangxiao, a female gymnast.

It suggests that the National Gymnastics Association may has decided to tackle the age problem in the country to prepare for competitions years after. For a country that has been supposedly getting ahead by staging underage gymnasts since, let’s say 2000, it could cost them golds at least in London.

The thing in Chinese gymnastics is, local teams and coaches at various levels have been following the trend of recruiting underage players and they understand clear that once the paperwork is done, it’s almost impossible to tell how old exactly a young lady is. So whatever agenda is on Huang’s mind to get things right, it’s no easy task.

Source: Wuhan Morning Post (武汉晨报 in Chinese)

Dong competing in the Sydney Games

Five golds, two silvers and four bronzes – the performance of Chinese athletes at the Vancouver Games has been nothing but outstanding during the celebration of Chinese New Year. But back home, sports officials in Beijing are fumbling, as a bronze medal the Chinese gymnastic team won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics could be stripped soon.

As gymnastics officials may have helped Chinese athletes falsify birth documentations just like the football and basketball teams have been doing in the country, it looks they forgot to remind the players that they should keep lying.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) posted their ruling last Saturday on its Web site. Excerpt below:

In the case of Dong Fangxiao, the Executive Committee constituted that there was a violation to the FIG Statutes and Regulations. Consequently, the results obtained by Dong Fangxiao at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games have been cancelled. The FIG Executive Committee decision was forwarded to the IOC Executive Board with the recommendation to withdraw the Bronze medal obtained by the Chinese Team including the results of Dong Fangxiao in Sydney. In addition, the FIG Executive Committee pronounced the cancellation of all results obtained by Dong Fangxiao at the 34th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships 1999 in Tianjin (CHN), of all results obtained at the FIG World Cup Series 1999 – 2000 and at the Artistic Gymnastics 2000 World Cup Final in Glasgow (GBR) The costs of the disciplinary procedure are awarded to the Chinese Gymnastics Association.

The Committee decided that in the case of Yang Yun the concrete and objective evidence available is insufficient to prove that the birth date indicated on the official documents was falsified. Ms. Yang Yun is awarded with a warning for the declaration she made during the interview with CCTV5. The only mention of age in this case was on a television interview. The costs of the disciplinary procedure are awarded to the Chinese Gymnastics Association.

Should the punishment be made by the International Olympic Committee, it can kind of prove that the Chinese gymnastic team lied to the world, also putting the results at the Beijing Games highly questionable. And now the Chinese Gymnastics Association claims the evidence held by the FIG is unconvincing.

“We believe that to date, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that there were problems with Dong Fangxiao’s age in 1999 and 2000, therefore we feel great regret toward the FIG’s punishment decision,” a staffer of the association said last Saturday and later put their statement on its Web site.

The whole thing left us with a comical situation that while there’s evidence suggests the players were under age when they competed in the Olympics, without reliable help from sports science, it seems these young ladies can never get caught by lying.

And the problem in China is, if the players do get caught here, like the CBA players we’ve mentioned earlier (also see here and here), they face little punishment according to China’s sports law.

Call me a pessimist, but unless the new licensing system implemented by the FIG is super cool, it looks very unlikely that the age fraud shall be gone from here soon. Let’s hope not to continue the talk after the London Games.

Update 1: In an interview with China Youth Daily, Luo Chaoyi, director of Gymnastics Administrative Center under the General Administration of Sport, the top governing body of Chinese sport, said the age of Dong Fangxiao is her personal matter and the fact that Dong’s age had been shifted 3 yrs younger after her retirement was Dong and her family’s own practice. (According to the FIG’s findings, Dong registered a birth date of January 20, 1983 at Sydney but when accredited to act as “secretary” at vault at the 2008 Beijing Games, had declared her birth date as January 23, 1986.)

Links and Sources:

• The FIG: Sanctions pronounced!
• msnbc: IOC: No proof China cheated in gymnastics
• AP: China expresses regret over gymnastics punishment
• Time: Can Science Tell a Gymnast’s Age?
• China Youth Daily via NetEase: Dong Fangxiao’s age fraud a personal practice (in Chinese)

Photo: NetEase

There are 46 teams participating this time: 4 municipality teams, 22 provincial teams, 5 autonomous region teams and the People’s Liberation Army team. The PLA is a big player every time. Also on the list are some sports association teams for certain industries such as aviation, forestry, communication, etc., who participate just for the sake of participating. The Games can usually tell you who will compete in the next Olympics. So if you’re thinking about the London 2012, better keep an eye on these new Chinese champions.

To most of the my compatriots, the Games seems to have already begun, as CCTV-5, China’s main sports channel, has been broadcasting its matches for at least a month, if not to count the qualifiers. Unlike other sports events in the rest of the World, I dare say that China’s National Games ranks the first in sending out medals before it officially kicks off. Up until now, still two days to the Opening Ceremony in Jinan, the capital city of Shandong, there’re 24 teams that won 238 gold medals already. Why so many? Partly because if a team member won a gold in the Beijing Games last summer, it counts for two golds for them in the National Game’s medal tally. If a player won in group sports in the Olympics, then it’s one gold for his or her team in the National Games. Another reason, according to the organizing committee, is that certain teams need to compete in some upcoming World champs, so they need to finish their matches quick.

Slogan of China's 11th National Games

The slogan of the Shandong Games is “Harmonious China, Everybody’s Games,” but it turned out to be somebody’s Games last weekend. As one of the judges disclosed that matches in the diving competitions were fixed by Zhou Jihong (周继红), head of China’s national diving team and deputy director of the National Aquatics Sport Administration Center. All the names the judge mentioned, including Olympic champions like He Chong (何冲) and Wu Minxia (吴敏霞), became gold medalists after October 12th when the finals finished (Check China Sports Today and China Hush‘s translation of the scandal).

The news quickly got onto the sports channels headlines of big Chinese portal sites like NetEase, Sohu and Sina yesterday. NetEase, my favorite Chinese news portal, even placed the story in its national news section, something not very harmonious to the Party’s propaganda chiefs. The story is titled “The Biggest Shady News Broke Out, All Golds Fixed in Diving Competitions of the National Games (全运会曝最大黑幕 跳水金牌被指全部内定)”, implying there’s other shady stuff going on as well.

To tell you the truth, I was not in the least surprised by the scandal. Because match-fixing is not something new in China. What’s new about this diving thing is that we’re finally talking about gold medals. But, what if it’s just qualifiers? Would anyone really pay attention? There’re fixed games in Chinese football and basketball but not a single player get caught and the associations remain silent all these years. Isn’t what happened in the diving finals just the way how sports have been played here? If so, what’s the big deal about that? Just keep enjoy the Games and pretend everything’s fine!

And did I mention age faking?

Previously:

• Does She Look 17?
• CBA Players and Myth about the Ages of Chinese Women Gymnasts

Links and Sources:

• Global Times: Fair play is sadly missing from Chinese sporting world
• China Sports Today: Corruption scandal hits Chinese diving
• China Hush: Dark Secret of the National Games, Diving Gold Medals all Pre-determined by Insiders
• Xinhua via Sina: Guangdong dominates men’s diving team finals at National Games
• NetEase: The Biggest Shady News Broke Out, All Golds Fixed in Diving Competitions of the National Games (Chinese)

Photo: The official website of the 11th National Games

1. Juguo Rules the Games 

51 golds, 21 silvers and 28 bronzes, a total 100 medals. China for the first time surpassed the US in the number of golds won most golds in an Olympic Games by sticking to its juguo or whole-nation sports regime. People at the General Administration of Sport of China, the governing body of China’s sports, had since been discussing about proliferating their successful juguo model into a more popular sport, football.

2. Lin Miaoke, Blackout and the Opening Ceremony

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games will be long remembered not only by its pyrotechnics and drum show, but also a girl named Lin Miaoke, who lip-synced when singing ‘Ode to the Motherland.’  “The reason was for the national interest,” said Chen Qigang, the musical director of the opening ceremony in a radio interview. Chen added that the decision of doing lip-syncing was made at the highest level. It goes without saying that whoever knew about this decision before the ceremony were cool about it, even the parents of Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi, the real singer, for whatever reasons that I can’t understand. 

Chen’s so-called ‘national interest’ did scare me, along with the blackout struck our community in Beijing on August 8, 15 minutes after the show began. I saw my neighbors helplessly talking to one other in the alley and guiltily drove to my friend’s. No one told us we were to have a blackout, and no one even came to us to explain what had happened after August 8. A Caijing article later showed that at least 15 pathetic residential communities in Chaoyang District had blackout that night, together contributing to the ‘national interest’ unknowingly. The lip-syncing girl at least had a shot of rejecting doing good to the ‘national interest,’ we didn’t. And that’s only in Beijing, the capital city.

3. Age Of Chinese Women Gymnasts Questioned

Chinese women gymnasts, He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan, were questioned about their ages after winning golds at the Games. It all began with Stryde’s hack of Chinese websites. All evidence disappeared, ID cards and passports provided. Sorry American girls, you did really well in the games but Chinese did better, if not in the indoor stadium. 

4. Yi Jianlian and CBA Age Scandals

Ages of 22 CBA players were found to have been changed their ages before the new season in the new yearbook issued by CBA, the governing body of Chinese basketball. The association then told media that there’re actually 26 players changed their ages, submitting all the info to FIBA and acting like they had no idea about the situation before. Early this December, a reporter at the Chinese-language version of Sports Illustrated found evidence suggesting that Yi Jianlian, New Jersey Nets forward, is 3 years older than he claimed to be.

5. Horse Gambling in Wuhan

Some 3 million jobs and 100 billion Chinese yuan annual sales sound so enticing that gambling, after nearly 60-year ban in China, reappeared in a different form of packaging. And looks like it will be welcomed even more by the government under the current economic circumstances. 

6. China Bowl Canceled by NFL Again

From Hongda’s withdrawal from Formula One to MLB and NFL’s job cuts, sports industry was so much struck by the slumping economy this winter. China bowl was once again canceled by NFL and New England Patriots closed its office in Beijing.

7. Li Ning Lit the Olympic Flame

Li Ning’s lighting of the Olympic cauldron at the closing ceremony is no doubt the biggest ambush marketing in Olympic history. Although not an official Olympic sponsor, the Chinese sportswear manufacturer must have sold more sneakers thanks to the incomparable publicity it enjoyed at the ceremony. Li Ning penned a contract with Los Angeles Clippers’ Baron Davis this November, a branding move that can be translated as ‘we don’t care much about the North American market.’

8. Fenglu Club Vs. CBA

It’s sad after so much preparation and promises and Fenglu still hadn’t gotten what they wanted, a seat at Chinese Basketball Association, China’s top basketball league. “Geographical balance” might be the weirdest explanation one can ever think of, and unfortunately that’s all CBA could offer for the club.

9. Liu Xiang’s Last Minute Withdrawal         

For millions of Chinese fans, Liu Xiang is simply a source of national pride, the same complex Chinese people had towards China women’s national volleyball team in the 1980s, after claiming five straight major titles. Liu’s last minute withdrawal at the Beijing Games were widely sympathized by fans except for the anger from the scalpers. Liu, 110-meter hurdler, had been covered almost everyday by Chinese media after winning gold in 2004 Athens Olympics. Some said he was hurt not by injury, but the overzealous Chinese media.

10. Chinese Football Out for 2010 World Cup

Chinese football fans could not be downhearted more this year. The national men’s football team was eliminated in the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers this June and lost whatever match they could lose in the rest of the year. Yesterday on December 30, Wei Shaohui, the manager of the men’s team and an official at Chinese Football Association, apologized in a press conference for the poor performance of the team with his theory about potency, “we’ll be potent again when the performance gets better.”

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China Sports Review previously told you about the age scandal over Chinese basketball and football players. Li Zhigang, a reporter from Sports Illustrated China(体育画报), posted an article on his blog yesterday about the investigation over Yi Jianlian‘s age. Yi, now playing at the New Jersey Nets, entered NBA in 2007/2008 season. For those of you who’re not familiar with the story of his age, below are some excerpts from Wikipedia:

We stumbled upon a fascinating post today on Asia Basket. Arthur Volbert, a US-based basketball writer who’s been closely following Chinese basketball, found that ages of 22 CBA players have been changed at the start of season 2008/2009. Below are some excerpts:

For Jiangsu, Tang Zhengdong went from being born in 1984 to 1982, confirming longtime rumors than he was older than his listed age. Others who became older were Han Shuo, Yi Li, Hu Xuefeng, Meng Da and Fang Hui.

For Liaoning, National Team member Zhang Qingpeng went from being born in 1985 to being born in 1981. Yang Ming, Gu Liye, Lu Wei and Liu Xiangtao also became older.

For other teams, there are the normal ups and downs with ages that happens in China. Guangdong’s Du Feng, a member of the National Team, went from being born in 1981 to being born in 1982. He keeps switching from one to the other and back, for some unfathomable reason.

Are we surprised by the news? Not at all. Your correspondent at CSR happened to be the schoolmate of two CBA players, one at Shanghai Sharks (上海大鲨鱼队) and the other at Bayi Rockets (八一火箭队), who both were officially listed last year by CBA as four years younger than we know. The two players are unfortunately not on Arthur’s list.

If someone digs, age-scandal stories of this kind can be found in almost every soon-to-be-nationalised football clubs in the country. The reason no one gives a hoot about it is because Chinese football has been lying there in a perennial slumber for so long. And oh, by Chinese football we mean men’s national football team. If you look at the performances of Chinese U17 or U20 men’s team you’ll find they’re actually not as bad as their elders, the U17 team even made it to the quarter-finals of FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2005 in Peru. This suggests that the pace, strength, stamina of these ‘boys’ outruned their foreign peers at the time. The bad news for Chinese footballers is their peers do grow, and we all know what can be expected later.

What Arthur found reminds us of the debate over ages in the Beijing Olympic Games, where two Chinese women gymnasts, He Kexin (何可欣) and Jiang Yuyuan (江钰源), were questioned whether their were below 16, the age women gymnasts are considered eligible to compete in the Games. “The girls are so little, so young,” said Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic all-around gymnastics champion at the 1984 Los Angeles Games to the New York Times when speaking of He. “They said she was 16, but I don’t know.”

Well, we don’t know either. But chances are the Chinese Gymnastics Association do, and they told media that the young ladies are old enough. We genuinely hope He and Jiang are not like those basketball and football players, otherwise they not only cheated their competitors but also themselves, and the gold medals they won will always remind them of what happened this summer.

Sources and Reads:

• Asia Basket: 22 CBA Players Change Birth Years
• The New York Times: Ruling Backs Chinese Gymnasts
• Sports Law Blog: Yi Jianlian’s Age, NBA Employment, and Immigration Law

Photo: Baidu Baike

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