Gymnastics at The 2008 Summer Olympics - Age Controversy

Age Controversy

After initially accepting the ages of all members of the Chinese women's gymnastic team, on August 21, 2008 the I.O.C. instructed the International Gymnastics Federation, known as the F.I.G., to investigate allegations that China's dual gold medal winning gymnast He Kexin is underaged and therefore was not eligible to compete during China's Olympic gymnastics competition. F.I.G was instructed to take up the issue with the Chinese gymnastics federation and report back to the I.O.C. later on Friday, August 22. Currently, the International Gymnastics Federation sets the age requirement for competition at 16 years old in the year of the Olympiad. The IOC had initially accepted the ages of all the Chinese participants, but new documents surfaced placing He Kexin's birth year at 1994, not 1992 as initially reported on her Chinese passport. This would place her at age 14 and ineligible for competition. According to online sports registration lists in China, over half the team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng Linlin — would be under age. The F.I.G., however, previously said that those gymnasts were eligible and that the ages on their passports were correct.

The investigation was initiated after an American blogger and hacker identified as Mike Walker allegedly discovered a cached official Excel spreadsheet showing He Kexin's birthday as January 1, 1994. His discoveries support earlier reports from The New York Times and other online bloggers regarding He Kexin's age discrepancy. Earlier, several bloggers found links to news stories and photo captions - in both English and Chinese published in 2007 and in early 2008 in several publications, including the state-run Xinhua news service, which cited He Kexin's age as 13. One cached version of a story published in May this year refers to her as being aged 14.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said on Sunday, August 24 that "at first glance," the paperwork supplied by the Chinese Federation supported the position, that all six members of its gold medal women's gymnastics team were old enough to compete at the Beijing Games. However, the FIG continued to investigate the age controversy, and requested additional information on every member of the team except for Cheng Fei.

On October 1, 2008, the FIG ended their second investigation and concluded that He Kexin and her teammates from the 2008 Olympic games were old enough to compete. Though some American media outlets have voiced doubts about the decision, the gymnasts have been cleared by the FIG of any wrongdoing.