The China Digital Times asks, How Old is [Chinese gymnast and gold medalist] He Kexin (何可欣), Really? The answer is 14 (or possibly 13), well under the age limit of 16.
More importantly, the site dug out the Google cache page (above) dated November 2007 that clearly shows the girl’s age to be 13 at the time according to China’s own official Xinhua News Agency.
The very rough translation follows:
The Chinese athletics sports progresses unceasingly, the reserve talented person emerges one after another incessantly. At the sixth national City Game, star of the tomorrow will be blooming, waited for that they will be greatly higher stages. He Ke joyful (gymnastics) 13 year-old Wuhan contestant He Ke in the female uneven bars competition’s match is national sports team’s Yang Yi Lin joyful. Under the main floor audience’s support, this girl has completed “Li splendidly in the finals the somersault” the complete set movement, won narrowly already obtained high score international championship third place Yang Yi Lin, put together the champion. National women’s team head coach Lu Shanzhen also applauded for her. (material picture) Xinhua News Agency Reporter Cheng Min
Later: from blogger Stryde Hax: Hackers unearth more underage gymnast allegations. The International Olympics Committee has called on the gymnastics governing body, FIG, to investigate further. As inspiring as He Kexin’s routines have been, we’ll see if China will get away with their obvious flouting of the Olympic rules.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
guess this shows why China wants to control the Internet – hard to cover up global lies when you leave digital thumb prints of the truth behind…
I predict that it will become law in China to never print the age of any competitors in public media from now on.
I was thinking the same thing, Allison. Censorship before the fact is so much easier than trying to go back and rewrite history.
A little Orwellian for us all. Remember in the book “1984”: “Reads…Should read” when our protagonist’s job was to alter historical records? Well, now we really have it.
Don’t let “Google” off the hook here. These corporations, like our own media outlets that spied on us at home, make high profits under fascism. Won’t be long when a page like this disappears off “Googles” site here at home—especially if the Karl Cabal gets back in office.
i think that those girls are not all 16 only one of them cheng fei is over 16. in my opinion He Kexin is 12, Deng Linlin is 10 or 9, Yang Yilin is 15, or 14, Li Shanshan is 15 at the max. and jiang yuan is about 14 or 13. the 2 i know for sure are not 16 are he kexin and yang yilin. i no yang yilin is not 16 because i was watching a video from the 07 worlds and her age was listed as 15 the at the olympics they have her listed as 15 also.