CHINA’S CHILDREN GYMNASTS
8/13/08
As I watched the (women’s) Olympic gymnastic events, I and millions of other viewers were subjected to a performance by Chinese children. The legal age for competition is sixteen. There were several Chinese gymnasts that barely looked like they were ten years old. Granted they won the gold medal and were highly talented however, the Chinese win of the gold will always be tarnished by the questionable age of the team members. The oldest on the team and their captain was supposedly twenty years old, she was the only team member that looked like she was the appropriate age to compete.
It is sad to see that a nation as powerful and populated as China is , would have to resort to using children to win in the Olympics. Why ? Why would they need to ? They have 1.3 billion people in China. The U.S has 300 million. There are four times as many possible gymnastic athletes to choose from in China’s population. Why would they need to use young girls under the age of sixteen to compete in one of the most demanding Olympic competitions, knowing that their age will be questioned, and knowing that these contestants should be disqualified because of their age to compete ? The strict Chinese doping policies and other Olympic tests given to the competing athletes is absurd and absolute hypocrisy, when the Olympic committee ignores China’s obvious illegal tactics of falsifying passports and birth records of their underage Olympic competitors.
The U.S Olympic women’s gymnastic team did a spectacular job. Receiving the Silver Medal against so many odds, and with the judging stacked against them and the illegal age difference of the Chinese team, winning the polished Silver Medal is far more noble and difficult , than winning the medal of polished brass.
It is understandable that China as the host of the Olympic games would feel the need to perform at it’s peak of athletic excellence however, their exploitation of underage girls to compete against the best legal aged gymnasts in the world, exemplifies how great the gap is between their ultimate desire for global respect as a super power and their dismal disregard for integrity in international competitions and their flagrant abuses of human rights.
China is an emerging economic super power, because of the incompetent actions and trade policies of Western counties and their predatory , capitalistic natures of exploiting underdeveloped countries. As China strives to develop its economy on the backs of its impoverished people it will eventually lose anything it temporarily gains. The strict totalitarian oppression is causing great dissension in China. As the people of China begin to experience the freedoms of the West, and the advantages of individual wealth, the ancient walls that have kept the Chinese people imprisoned in a totalitarian society, will soon be destroyed by a great revolution fueled by love of freedom and the invasion of Western ideologies, and culture that are sweeping across China. China has opened it’s doors to welcome the world to enter. The Chinese government and 1.3 billion Chinese people do not realize, that their doors will never be able to close again.
L.A. STEEL
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