Hidden Harmonies China Blog

Video below is a highlight of the Chinese men at the 2011 Gymnastics Worlds in Tokyo where they have just won the team title. I was recently at a friend’s daughters gymnastics tournament. There were teams of five year-olds and up. At that age, 10 hours training each week is considered the norm. I was impressed with the commitment the athletes and their families put in. (It sounds weird calling five year-olds athletes, but they are.) Read more…

Even though Buxi isn’t back, why don’t we return to a fine tradition of this blog? This post from Niubo (牛博), a Chinese forum often filled with discontent with how things are, has something interesting to add about the age of Olympic gymnast He Kexin. Translation below:

On the question of the Chinese gymnast He Kexin’s age, one fact is certain, that is, there is an inconsistency between the local athletic bureau and the central athletic bureau. So, is it that:

1. The local athletic bureau is correct, and the central athletic bureau changed her age to older?

OR

2. The local athletic bureau falsified, and changed her age to younger?

Read more…

Last night after the women’s gymnastics team final, NBC announcer Bella Caroli commented that the Chinese team cheated with underage athletes, and their passports were doctored by the Chinese government.

After some digging, it seems the age allegation had surfaced some time ago, but was quelled after passports and birth certificates where produced to the satisfaction of the gymnasts federation in charge.

Have not seen much of this since, except the NBC commentator and some 2nd tier reporting from NYT.

The reporter mentioned that there were some government documents on this, so I set out to find them. Here’s what I found while searching the gov.cn domain:
Read more…