Is He too young?

Alexandrovich

Heaven forbid she's treated by her coach in the same way as Olga and Nadia were. I doubt it. However, these rules are not to ensure fair competion; they are there to prevent damage to an immature body. Sure, she was the outright winner but I, for one, won't see her broken body when she's forty five.

Karl Westwood

Looking at this objectively, it seems a little strange that there are implications of the Chinese cheating in this matter. Notwithstanding the welfare issues involved, the Chinese won the gold fairly, and the fact the competitor may have been underage conferred no competitive advantage on her. Lets keep a sense of perspective and consider the injustice of taking a medal away from someone who has in fact achieved something more impressive than we previously thought.

David

Karl -

(1) I am no expert but I understand that small size makes some aspects of the bars easier to do in a neat and high-scoring way. Which is why there was pressure to bring children on younger and younger, and why the rule was specifically required in gymnastics.

(2) Even if it was not 'cheating' it was still a rule violation. This would not be first time an athlete loses a medal on a technicality - say not quite meeting nationality requirements. A case of "rules is rules"

(3) Even if you think it is only a 'technicality' it still seems to be becoming clear that the Chinese government faked identify documents and conspired in a cover up to fraudulently enter an athlete who is not qualified. Not an oversight or an accident - just cheating on a grand scale.

Will Rees

I find this confusing, gym must have a fairly similar training regime to diving, and not only is it OK to have diving competitors aged 13, Tom Daley has been lionized for his efforts.

Its as bad as last weeks efforts to point out that you need to ask permission in advance to protest in Bejing -this is also true in London. Not that I favour child exploitation or civil liberty restrictions, more that we would fail similar scrutiny.

Chris Barington

Its seems most people are missing the point. You say that she won fair and square but this isn't the case. First off, her score was the the same as Nastia Liukin, so she won gold because of a rule they have in place in case of a tie, Not outright.

Secondly, to anyone who knows anything about gymnastics...you know that the younger you are the better. Puberty is death for a gymnast. Not to be crude, but butt and breast throw off the center of gravity. Its easier for a 14 year old to spin/rotate at higher speeds then a 25 year old. Age matters.

Lastly, even if it is a stupid rule and we don't agree with (which i happen 2). Not applying the rule fairly causes unfair competition. Because what if we in the U.S have a 14 year old capable of handing He her ass in uneven bars. We would never truly know who has the best competitor if we chose from the smaller approved group and they chose from their entire population.

Let's suppose the games are closed to anyone who likes hip hop music, for example. Why might it matter if some hypothetical Foozania were to field a swimmer who secretly likes hip hop music when the other countries voluntarily held back? Absent Michael Phelps who would be voluntarily withheld because of his professed like of hip hop, the Foozanian swimmer's scores might seem very good. By your reasoning, which seems to amount to absence of competition, he deserves his medal fair and square, right? But if the absence of competition can be caused by uneven application of rules, that's where the problem comes.

Karl Westwood

I may not have expressed myself clearly in my first post, but I think some of the other comments support my general thrust - that we shouldn't over-react to this story. I agree that rules, whether one thinks them reasonable or not, should be adhered to, and that any transgression should be punished accordingly within the strictures of the sport/event. My point is that this seems a minor story, based around a technicality, and we shouldn't be jumping up and down screaming "cheats!" To do so only lessens the impact of our revulsion at more brazen and significant examples of cheating - drug abuse being the obvious one.

And I accept that being younger may confer a slight advantage for a gymnast. But, again notwithstanding any welfare issues (and lets not forget there have been no concerns about the inclusion of a 14 year old male diver in Team GB), I'm pretty underwhelmed by this story. Systematic state-sponsored drug use by a team would be one thing, fiddling with the D.O.B. of a talented (and apparently clean) athlete is another.