正文
Perhaps too young, but China\'s gymnasts no babies Posted Wednesday, August 13, 2008 6:37 AM ET
Associated Press
China\'s gymnasts Yang Yilin, left, and Deng Linlin celebrate during the women\'s team final competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. BEIJING (AP) - Those shiny Olympic golds should look just dandy hanging from the Chinese gymnasts\' cribs.
OK, so perhaps that\'s unfair. Perhaps those waiflike girls, with their small teeth and teeny-weeny high-pitched voices, really were old enough to compete, as they and China\'s communist authorities insist.
This much is certain: By beating the more worldly-wise U.S. squad to secure their first gold in women\'s - really girls\' - gymnastics on Wednesday, the Chinese showed they are no babies.
They weren\'t exceptional like China\'s men were in winning gold the day before. But they got the job done. One can\'t say the same of the Americans.
To win at this unforgiving level, teams can get away with a minor wobble here and there. The Chinese had a few of those.
But Alicia Sacramone\'s tumble and missed flip on the beam, and Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin\'s steps out of bounds on the floor, well, that\'s the gym equivalent of shooting your own chalk-covered feet. They were the difference between American silver and Chinese gold.
We are just as good as China, said U.S. team coordinator Martha Karolyi. But we made mistakes. They didn\'t make mistakes.
Perhaps, as Karolyi argued, the home field advantage helped. But it was inevitable that one day, China would get it right.
China has the world\'s biggest gene pool, offering masses of girls with the right build, looks and temperament.
Videos
Finals: China floor
China\'s floor routines from the women\'s team final.
Finals: China beam
Finals: China bars
Photos
The day in pictures
A photo narrative on the women\'s team final.
The medal winners
Like panning for gold, thousands of state-run sports academies and schools find and train the most promising ones, starting sometimes just a few years after they learned to walk. The system\'s been criticized for its tough single-mindedness, even within China.
Yang Yilin, whose first vault got China going on Wednesday, said she hasn\'t been home in over a year. The American gymnasts, in contrast, still live at home.
Chinese coach Lu Shanzhen painted the gold as a triumph for China\'s way of doing things. But the system, at least for the women, has had mixed results. Lu has had some gems before, like Liu Xuan. She won the balance beam gold and all-around individual bronze at the Sydney games. But he had never, until now, put together a squad that truly held its nerve at the Olympic level.
All six girls are exceptional. I like them all. I love them all, Lu said.
The coach went back to the drawing board after Zhang Nan came home with China\'s only medal, an all-around bronze, from Athens four years ago.
Just one survivor from Athens was on the apparatus Wednesday. Cheng Fei, a doyen at just 20, led the way as the team filed behind her from one routine to the next. Like a big sister, she checked the sparkly makeup of her younger teammates, wiping away excess with her fingers.
So was half the Chinese team too young to compete? We may never know. Some documents and media reports suggested that He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang may have been two years under the minimum age of 16.
Gymnastics officials really should have sorted this out earlier. It would have avoided sour grape comments like those from Karolyi, who said one of the Chinese girls was missing a tooth, hinting that she might be too young.
If it is true it is totally unfair, Karolyi said. Certain countries go by rules and certain countries do not.
But gymnastics officials and the International Olympic Committee said they looked at the girls\' passports, and that everything checked out. But that hardly seems foolproof. Governments have fiddled figures before.
The Chinese girls were obviously expecting questions, and seemed as well drilled to answer them as they were to twirl and fly on the uneven bars.
Without any hesitation, He reeled off this response: My real age is 16. I don\'t pay any attention to what everyone says.
Asking their animal sign according to the Chinese zodiac didn\'t trip them up either. Yang quickly replied monkey, which corresponds to 1992.
Physically, it was just impossible to tell. There are no large, old or voluptuous gymnasts at Olympics finals. Instead, they mostly look small, some barely pubescent.
The Chinese look pretty young but I don\'t look 20, so I\'m not one to judge, Sacramone said.
Either way, the Chinese proved they weren\'t half-people, to quote the unkind words of famed coach Bela Karolyi. The husband of Martha Karolyi, he is working the games as an NBC commentator.
China\'s three young \'uns all played their part in the victory. On the uneven bars, theirs was the highest score of any of the eight teams.
By their last routine, the floor, the Chinese only needed to keep their cool to win. They did just fine.
Cheng struck a blow for the oldies: She went last with tumbling acrobatics timed to the crashing sound of Chinese opera cymbals. Coach Lu pumped both fists in the air when she was done.
Too young or not, the gold was theirs.
Associated Press
China\'s gymnasts Yang Yilin, left, and Deng Linlin celebrate during the women\'s team final competition at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. BEIJING (AP) - Those shiny Olympic golds should look just dandy hanging from the Chinese gymnasts\' cribs.
OK, so perhaps that\'s unfair. Perhaps those waiflike girls, with their small teeth and teeny-weeny high-pitched voices, really were old enough to compete, as they and China\'s communist authorities insist.
This much is certain: By beating the more worldly-wise U.S. squad to secure their first gold in women\'s - really girls\' - gymnastics on Wednesday, the Chinese showed they are no babies.
They weren\'t exceptional like China\'s men were in winning gold the day before. But they got the job done. One can\'t say the same of the Americans.
To win at this unforgiving level, teams can get away with a minor wobble here and there. The Chinese had a few of those.
But Alicia Sacramone\'s tumble and missed flip on the beam, and Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin\'s steps out of bounds on the floor, well, that\'s the gym equivalent of shooting your own chalk-covered feet. They were the difference between American silver and Chinese gold.
We are just as good as China, said U.S. team coordinator Martha Karolyi. But we made mistakes. They didn\'t make mistakes.
Perhaps, as Karolyi argued, the home field advantage helped. But it was inevitable that one day, China would get it right.
China has the world\'s biggest gene pool, offering masses of girls with the right build, looks and temperament.
Videos
Finals: China floor
China\'s floor routines from the women\'s team final.
Finals: China beam
Finals: China bars
Photos
The day in pictures
A photo narrative on the women\'s team final.
The medal winners
Like panning for gold, thousands of state-run sports academies and schools find and train the most promising ones, starting sometimes just a few years after they learned to walk. The system\'s been criticized for its tough single-mindedness, even within China.
Yang Yilin, whose first vault got China going on Wednesday, said she hasn\'t been home in over a year. The American gymnasts, in contrast, still live at home.
Chinese coach Lu Shanzhen painted the gold as a triumph for China\'s way of doing things. But the system, at least for the women, has had mixed results. Lu has had some gems before, like Liu Xuan. She won the balance beam gold and all-around individual bronze at the Sydney games. But he had never, until now, put together a squad that truly held its nerve at the Olympic level.
All six girls are exceptional. I like them all. I love them all, Lu said.
The coach went back to the drawing board after Zhang Nan came home with China\'s only medal, an all-around bronze, from Athens four years ago.
Just one survivor from Athens was on the apparatus Wednesday. Cheng Fei, a doyen at just 20, led the way as the team filed behind her from one routine to the next. Like a big sister, she checked the sparkly makeup of her younger teammates, wiping away excess with her fingers.
So was half the Chinese team too young to compete? We may never know. Some documents and media reports suggested that He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang may have been two years under the minimum age of 16.
Gymnastics officials really should have sorted this out earlier. It would have avoided sour grape comments like those from Karolyi, who said one of the Chinese girls was missing a tooth, hinting that she might be too young.
If it is true it is totally unfair, Karolyi said. Certain countries go by rules and certain countries do not.
But gymnastics officials and the International Olympic Committee said they looked at the girls\' passports, and that everything checked out. But that hardly seems foolproof. Governments have fiddled figures before.
The Chinese girls were obviously expecting questions, and seemed as well drilled to answer them as they were to twirl and fly on the uneven bars.
Without any hesitation, He reeled off this response: My real age is 16. I don\'t pay any attention to what everyone says.
Asking their animal sign according to the Chinese zodiac didn\'t trip them up either. Yang quickly replied monkey, which corresponds to 1992.
Physically, it was just impossible to tell. There are no large, old or voluptuous gymnasts at Olympics finals. Instead, they mostly look small, some barely pubescent.
The Chinese look pretty young but I don\'t look 20, so I\'m not one to judge, Sacramone said.
Either way, the Chinese proved they weren\'t half-people, to quote the unkind words of famed coach Bela Karolyi. The husband of Martha Karolyi, he is working the games as an NBC commentator.
China\'s three young \'uns all played their part in the victory. On the uneven bars, theirs was the highest score of any of the eight teams.
By their last routine, the floor, the Chinese only needed to keep their cool to win. They did just fine.
Cheng struck a blow for the oldies: She went last with tumbling acrobatics timed to the crashing sound of Chinese opera cymbals. Coach Lu pumped both fists in the air when she was done.
Too young or not, the gold was theirs.
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