Mind Scalpel

Despite substantial suggestions that some of China’s female Olympic gymnasts are younger than the required 16 years of age, Chinese apparatchi – uh – spokespeople insist that previous Chinese state-controlled news reports that showed them as being younger were erroneous.

According to the Associated Press:

Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government’s news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week…. In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of “10 big new stars” who made a splash at China’s Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games.

…

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China’s first women’s team Olympic gold in gymnastics.

I would, of course, be shocked — shocked! — at any inference that the Chinese would skirt the Olympic rules or falsify anything, despite other news reports that they decided to fake their fireworks display and crush a little girl’s spirit by using her voice to sing the opening anthem while another, “cuter” girl lip-synched it at the stadium and on television.

I would even deny the veracity of any followup news report that stated the following:

When journalists pressed the International Olympics Committee for reasons why it was not investigating further, an IOC spokesman, eyes darting from side to side, whispered a passing reference to the “billions of dollars” the Chinese government and its state-run companies were providing the IOC, both in direct contributions and in advertising at the Games.

“But besides all that,” the spokesman said, pausing only to stuff more cash in his pockets provided by a nearby Chinese official, “we really did a thorough check, and are pleased to report that we’ve confirmed that the female gymnasts are way over 16 – they’re just starving to death.”

“Oh, heck, yeah,” affirmed Zhang Hongliang, an official with China’s gymnastics delegation at the games who is fluent in English, “we give them maybe 50 grains of rice per day for most of the year. We promised them all full meals for a month if they took home the team gold, and boy, did that motivate them! You can see the results for yourself!” he said, beaming over a picture of the gymnasts with their gold medals. “Of course, the reduced caloric intake plus the incredible amounts of training we forced them through has stunted their growth somewhat, but we view height as a bourgeois Western value anyway, so it’s kind of a win/win.”

Zhang again denied reports that Chinese gymnasts were beaten in training to “make them hard,” stating “come on! Look at the size of these girls! If we beat them they’d break in two. No, we use electric shock colla-” just before he was hustled away by his PLA “minders.”

Update: More on the Chinese history of this sort of thing from Michelle Malkin….

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