i was looking on the documents and all of them had different ages but i thought everyones birthday is on january 1st in china... or maybe that was japan..... and even with the one year birth age thing hybrix she is still a year to young.... she is 14 not 16 and the rest of the world goes by actual birth date not by what the country considers your age to be, im pretty sure they consider her 14 not 15 and most definately not 16...

they have some pretty solid proof..... her entrance to every other gymnastics meet has her age at 14

What gets me is I was watching some replays of the tennis matches earlier on Lifetime and the one girl, Na Li won against Venus Williams but I swear the girl isn't even on the WTA and I haven't seen her in any tournaments. I don't know how they pick these people but they do train them starting very, very young and I have a feeling that's all they ever know.

as far as i know gymnastics is the only sport with an age restriction though blue.... so it doesnt really matter in anything else if the girls are super young.... its sad but legal

Considering they put a pretty singer child to lipsync over an 'ugly' one's voice so that China will "look good", I have no doubts they can pull off other switches and lies if that will earn them awards/medals for the sake of looking better.

I like the tag:

The plus size Chinese scandal.

Back to the topic.

Yeah, when I first watched the gymnastics it looked strange seeing such short and young girls posing as 16 year olds. I wasn't sure what quite to think until people stated to comment on it. Then I knew there would be drama coming along for the ride at this Olympics.

Too be honest, who cares how old they are?!?! If they're that good, they should be able to compete.

thats like saying oh who cares how old those workers are, if they can make a tennis shoe for under two dollars i'm ok with them being 7

Equating competitive gymnastics to child labor . . why does that not surprise me coming from you, EWR? It's true that part of me wants to say, "If they're so great, then let them compete" but rules are there for a reason. If you can't make the cut off, then you have to wait, tough ****.

However, I see no way to relate this to shoemaking.

Exactly my thoughts. The age restriction does not work and is rather pointless it does nothing to protect the child athlete they might as well compete.

I got to agree with Constantine. Child labour it is not and that would be a whole different subject with completely different pros and cons. Incomparable subjects.

so you guys are fine pushing that much stress and hard work on children who almost never choose this life. they are taken from their homes as young as 2 and put through hard work their whole lives, never getting to see their families. sounds pretty comparable to me. i personally think it is not something a child can deal with until they are at least 16.