China Stripped of Women?s Gymnastics Medal

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China Stripped of Women?s Gymnastics Medal

By JULIET MACUR

</NYT_BYLINE>Published: April 28, 201<SCRIPT src="http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_remote.html?type=fastscript&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/&posall=Frame6A&query=qstring&keywords=?"></SCRIPT>


The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday stripped the Chinese women?s gymnastics team of a bronze medal it won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The move came two months after one of China?s athletes, Dong Fangxiao, was found to be under-age at those Summer Games.

The I.O.C. will award the bronze medal to the United States , which had finished fourth in the team event and had left the 2000 Olympics empty-handed. The team members were Amy Chow, Jamie Dantzscher, Dominique Dawes, Kristen Maloney, Elise Ray and Tasha Schwikert.

?I could have never imagined getting another Olympic medal at 33 years old, so it?s great to hear the news and that justice prevailed,? said Dawes, who will now have one gold and three bronze Olympic medals, from the 1992, 1996 and 2000 Games. ?I?m thrilled that my teammates and I, 10 years later, will finally be able to enjoy the medal we deserved.?

The issue of age falsification has been a lingering problem in gymnastics and was a major issue at the 2008 Beijing Games, where questions arose about the age of at least two of China?s female gymnasts. Internet sports registries and other sources showed that those gymnasts were under-age.

To compete at the Games, gymnasts must be at least 16 in an Olympic year.

In the end, the International Gymnastics Federation did not find any proof of wrongdoing. But in Dong?s case, the federation did have evidence.

The federation had been investigating Dong for possible age falsification since she filed paperwork to work as an official at the Beijing Games. The age on those documents would have made her 14 at the Sydney Olympics.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/sports/olympics/29gymnast.html

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: China Stripped of Women?s Gymnastics Medal

IOC strips 2000 Games bronze medal from China

By STEPHEN WILSON AP Sports Writer

Excerpt:

"Age falsification has been a problem in gymnastics since the 1980s, when the minimum age was raised from 14 to 15 to help protect still-developing athletes from serious injuries. The International Gymnastics Federation raised the minimum age to its current 16 in 1997.

But the issue drew worldwide attention in 2008, when media reports and Internet records suggested some of the girls on host China?s gold-medal-winning Olympic team could have been as young as 14. With the controversy threatening to overshadow the final days of those games, the IOC ordered the FIG to investigate.

Its probe cleared the Beijing gymnasts and closed the case in October 2008 after Chinese officials provided original passports, ID cards and family registers that showed all of the gymnasts were old enough to compete.

But the FIG said it wasn?t satisfied with ?the explanations and evidence provided to date? for Dong and a second Sydney gymnast, Yang Yun.

?That was discussed a lot in 2000,? said Kelli Hill, the U.S. coach at the time. ?We?d heard all of those stories back then, but we?d never had it confirmed or anything. It was just the rumor mill.?

Dong?s accreditation information for the Beijing Olympics, where she worked as a national technical official, listed her birthday as Jan. 23, 1986. That would have made her 14 in Sydney - too young to compete. Her birth date in the FIG database is listed as Jan. 20, 1983.

Dong?s blog also said she was born in the Year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac, which dates from Feb. 20, 1985, to Feb. 8, 1986.
The FIG nullified Dong?s Sydney results in February. The federation didn?t find sufficient evidence to prove Yang was underage; instead, it gave her a warning.

Because Dong?s scores contributed to China winning the team bronze, the FIG recommended the IOC take back the medal.

?We are extremely grateful that the IOC and the FIG have taken such a thorough look at the issues that were raised in Beijing,? said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. ?It serves the best interests of sports to make sure there?s always a fair field of play.?

The IOC ordered China?s national Olympic committee to return the team medals ?as soon as possible? so they can be reallocated to the U.S. team."

Full text at:
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=txgymunderagegymnast