While news outlets such as NYT and Huffington Post were all too happy to “out” the Chinese government on misreporting and record errors, by citing unfavorable search engine results to bolster the “lie”, “cheat” conclusions – What our media doesn’t seem to care about, is the search engine results that are in support of the claim these girls are of age:
Jiang Yuyuan:
1. a report listing Jiang with 1990 DOB
2. Cached page from Google US showing Jiang with 1991 DOB
3. In Olympics documentary “Dream Weaver“, Jiang was interviewed in 2003 where she mentioned her age. The narrator of the documentary stated the gymnastics tryout took place in 2003(9:25), and Jiang identified herself(9:39) as 12 years old(9:45) then.
Li Shanshan:
1. Google US cache showing Li with 2/22/92 DOB
Fair and balanced, Fox style.
Chen Nian says
On September 24, 2008, the Sunday Times of London had a section “The Good, Bad and Ugly of Beijing 2008” in their Sport supplement and under the heading “Ugly” reporter John Aizlewood wrote – “Chinese gymnasts He Kexin and Jiang Yuuan. This year their ages mysteriously rose from 14 to 16, which helpfully happens to be the minimum age for gymnasts.”
So whatever the quality of the evidence regarding the girls’ ages so far produced, the Sunday Times, a respectable U.K. newspaper, has concluded as fact that the girls were underage.
S.K. Cheung says
OMG, you guys can make an Olympic sport out of beating a dead horse. Let it go already!
Here’s another thing. If one report has Jiang being born in 1990, and another in 1991, again the actual date loses importance; I become more struck by the fact that Chinese documents are useless. And that sentiment also extends to the issuer of said documents.
Charles Liu says
SK, that kind of sound reasoning seems to have escaped the media at large when it comes to He Kexin. Like I said her name should be Kelian, the way she’s put thru the ringer.