Fifteen minutes is a really long time
First an apology for not updating this blog in a timely fashion, for not responding to all my emails, and for the delay in approving comments. In my defense I can say only that I have found my blog and my findings at the center of an international media maelstrom. I never set out to change the course of the Olympics; I set out as I always do, a curious researcher, intent on the search for truth and the knowledge I could acquire along the way.
A thank you is in order to everyone who has helped me to catalog and establish the existence of these documents. There are so many of you now, I don't know how I can thank you all. But I believe that you have acted in a spirit of truth-finding and openness, and I thank you for that.
I have received a flood of information through my email in the last few days, and I'm way too behind to list all of it. However I feel it is a priority to mention that I am not the first blogger to have started investigating this controversy, and there are rumors that people within China have been blogging on this topic in the weeks preceding my post. Specifically this blog by BillyPan is full of meticulously archived screenshots, news clippings and web pages, and while I can't read the language, the pictures tell a very detailed story. I encourage everyone to have a look.
And now for a bit more content
I've gotten a lot of feedback about the appropriate way to get all three documents, still available from the Baidu cache at the time of this posting, into Google Translate correctly. The missing link here is that when you first copy the information out of the spreadsheets, they are covered in quote and comma characters, which messes up the translation. Groom out the punctuation and enter it into the translation box and you should end up with something like the screenshot below:
That's the three lines in question, from the three documents in question. At this point, I'm going to take a step back, let the experts analyze these documents, and see what the consensus is. I've done my part; citizen journalists of the world, this story is yours now!
34 comments:
The IOC is now investigating the age of the China Women's Gymnastics team:
http://tinyurl.com/IOC-Investigates
You are so lucky Stryde. If you live in China right now, you would be in jail for compromising the state sponsor system. Your blog will be deleted, erased, eradicated, scensored, done! Your house will be demolized, buzz dozered, and donated to the olympic venue, seriously. Next time, please be careful because you can't say anything to embarass the chinese nation/people/official regardless whether you are right or not. Even you live in the US, we will strive our best effort to shut you up. If we can, we will use whatever mean we have such as lobby the US government and even your own company to over turn you to china and you will be prosecute immediately without a lawyer/trial. That is how we do thing here and we really don't give a crap what is right what is wrong and how the world feel about us. so what if He is 14? what are you going to do to us?
Really impressive muckraking, congrats on the maelstrom. I think it's interesting that the NY Times, when it was onto this story weeks ago, failed to see it through as you did. They either couldn't grasp what was in front of them, or didn't understand how to document it properly. We'd be better served if the media understood the Internet better.
The truth is the truth, no matter who discovers or reports it. Good job.
You may have started doing this as a curious researcher, but i am glad that it has become much more. It ought to.
It could change the lives of the 6 american, 6 romanian and 6 other girls who have been denied of there medals because of these underage chinese girls. It could change the lives of 2 more girls who were denied there medals in indiviadual events which were won by He Kexin. And of course, if the other 2 chinese girls are underage as alleged, then there are easily 20 girls who worked hard for their dreams. Who hoped to be treated fairly. Who thought that hard work would bring them results. Some of these girls might just never get a chance for a medal in their lives again. Beth Tweedle is 23 and came in 4th in Uneven bars. He Kexin got the gold medal in this event.
Their dreams should not be crushed because of one nation's greedy quest for golds at any rate.
I checked out the chinese blogger you mentioned in this article - one of these articles is actually available here in the u.s - I blogged it myself today - in an article that I included you in actually.
http://dissfunktional.wordpress.com/2008/08/22/china-gymnast-he-kexin/
I am a Chinese girl.After scanning your articles,I must say I take my hat off to you,for your spirits and efforts to find a truth.Many many Chinese are supporting your behavior.The olympic should not be cheated!But there is one thing I have to tell you (after seeing some comments on your blog..) ,China isn't as some dear westerners'thinking that she is a autocratic,no-human-rights country.She is a great and magic country,and her people are very kind. Her people have the freedom to say whatever they want.People like you will get many respects here and Chinese government will not do someting bad to a person who is praiseworthy.
I am at home now(you can check my ip,I am in Hangzhou,Zhejiang province),I can surf the internet ,scan your article,leave my comment just as all of you,it may be another truth people should accept.
Thank you all the same ,for what efforts you have made for a better China!
Good job on making the news, it's about time these China age lying finally gets into light.
http://gazdecki.blogspot.com/
Stryde,
people like you and many us know the power of some of the technology available today. Many people from around the world, especially from china use the services of my company not only for anonymity, but because almost everything you make publicly available on the net stands the chance of being permanently ‘archived’.
I don’t know if I’m surprised that someone would taint the Games like this, but I’m a little surprised that someone involved in this type of ‘mistake’ (deception?) would carefully consider the power of technology 1st.
Hi Stryde,
thanks for your post. Well, it suc***, really that lying is a "suitable policy" for the chinese gov. to exploit kids, although this is not the only one doing it. Everybody knows that the host always take advantage, and sadly enough everybody thinks just because the info shows up in a "official" web site it has to be a "standard of true". I only really hope that we all wake up one day.
I totally agree with you that this fraud has to be fixed right away, and give the medals in fair competition.
My question here is, if the US were not fighting for the gold medals, would they have protested for such a fraud? Imagine the chinese girl would have gotten silver instead gold, and the US otherwise... would it have changed something?
Thanks, and please keep on writing!
why always He? please search Yang Yilin, which one from chinese olympic team too:
551,"杨伊琳","女","1993—8—26","广东","广州","广东","确认"
http://cache.baidu.com/c?m=9d78d513d9c343ad5ffa950e1a67d1716e2797624cc0a11f68a7e35fe36f4c353471e2cb30536113a4c26b1701b83f57fdf14665410537c6ebdff84ecac8e63f2ef83042760bf64205d269b8ba4d32b054872aeab86aedadf14284d8d7c4ac5444ba53120d83e78a2a1764c978876225a4e6c7474f1956f8fa3116e244326cda3440c106bbbd7228108181880108d42aa7304d8afb6eee6953a84be25e066413f54cb30a563b32e7097cae176013929c17b96b&p=882a9553ca904eae2ab5826842&user=baidu
811,"杨伊琳","女","1993-8-26","广东","广州","广东","确认"
http://cache.baidu.com/c?m=9d78d513d9c343ad5cfa950e1a67d1716e2797624cc0a11f68a7e35fe36f4c353471e2cb30536113a4c26b1701b83f57fdf14665410537c6ebdff84ecac8e63f2ef83042760bf64205d269b8ba4d32b054872aeab86aedadf14284d8d7c4ac5444ba53120d83e78a2a1764c978876225a4e6c7474f1956f8fa3116e244326cda3440c106bbbd7228108181880108d42aa7304d8afb6eee6953a84be25e066413f54cb30a553b78b10976e8444a4eccaa&p=c660ce1785cc40b10abd9b7c55&user=baidu
Johny, I don't think you are Chinese.
I am a Westerner in China and I can say 2 things about your stupid post:
1. China isn't this bad a police State. Especially not to foreigners. High Profile dissidents are simply placed under house arrest and foreigners deported.
2. No Chinese would be so obvious and open about things done in China. Many even kinda deny it.
So please, quit your act. The only thing you said worth anything is that it's good for Stryde not to be in China if he is publishing these documents.
That's not how law works around here. I believe our Constitution tell you to 'suck it.' Caching the official government page was a very smart move. What would HE do about it? Nothing. The IOC would strip her of her medals and the medals of anyone else who is underage and breaking the rules. But, they are too afraid of severely embarrassing the host country even when the world knows that they cheated. But I suppose its not like they've ever lied about the age of their gymnasts before and falsified documents....oh wait, they did.
"so what if He is 14? what are you going to do to us?"
Um... take away the gold medals?
@ Johny - I hope that is a joke.
@ Stryde - looks like they didn't find anything suspicious after their investigation:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/gymnastics/news/story?id=3547713
The IOC investigation ended in less than 12 hours, AWESOME INVESTIGATION WORK FELLAS! BTW http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200410/20/eng20041020_160941.html <-- Apparently FIG was given birth certificates. Well that article was from 2004 and was talking bout NEW birth certificates they started using because the standard they set in 1996 had to many forgeries. Well what were they using BEFORE 1996. Wish we could see that birthcertificate to see what it looks like. Would be awesome if it was a forgery and was in a similar style to the NEW ones they use. God this is such bullshit, this will never be resolved with a definitive answer on either side because China just keeps making information disappear.
Kudos on all of this. I'm proud to know you.
It's unfortunate that the IOC isn't going to take any of this seriously. They've already stated that the "official" documents provided by China are more then enough proof.
IOC said Friday there is still no proof anyone cheated, though it asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate "what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies," spokeswoman Giselle Davies said,
"We believe the matter will be put to rest and there's no question ... on the eligibility," Davies said. "The information we have received seems satisfactory in terms of the correct documentation — including birth certificates."
you are incredible! and who is this johnny person? sounds to me like a creepy chinese official under the pseudonym johnny. props to you.
Regarding the page referred to in the Chinese blog with the picture of He with the gold medal... I used Babelfish to translate. It isn't a perfect method, but you can get the point of it.
here it is:
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-res&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wretch.cc%2Fblog%2Fbillypan101%2F11740056&lp=zt_en&btnTrUrl=Translate
There is evidence to warrant an investigation. If people truly care about the censorship happening, they will find and review the documents for themselves. Use Babelfish or another translator and see what they say, and what context they are in. I firmly believe that if you all saw what I saw, you would have no doubt that somewhere along the way data was falsified. Who cares what the "olympic committee" does? Have the UN investigate deceptive practices relating to online censorship. It is never OK to let anyone rewrite history, and it never will be. Let's not forget where that leads...
So, this is what I was able to find out. I have donea few searches myself on this particular issue.
This is what I found. Mind you, this search was done today at 11:45am CST 08/22/2008.
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90779/90867/6416685.html
http://news.chinaassistor.com/2008/0602/Uneven-bars_queen_the_new_star_in_town_9085.html
http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90779/90867/6416685.html
For a country stating that they have shown proof. I'd like to say that they ARE the host country. There is no need for them to have a passport to get in the country. I don't understand why it is that the IOC and all the other bodies governing the Olympics don't demand birth certificates.
Thanks Stryde for the hard word you are doing! Thanks for recognizing that even citizens in China know they're cheating!
Just want to point out that it wasn't exactly "inside China", that blog is probably own by a Taiwanese, judging by what the owner and the people who commented said.
Anyway, I highly doubt any real result can be produced so soon, if at all. And I am wondering, how do you exactly "check" a person's age accurately anyway? I mean, other than checking documents? Documents can be faked so easily. Any medical means or something?
The clash between an increasingly digital world and the Chinese totalitarian regime should be an interesting spectacle.
China's exploding industrial complex and consumer base demands digital technology to feed its growth. The rub is that digital technology is incredibly democratizing. Once information is "out there" it can be documented, copied, cached etc. It will be practically impossible for the Chinese government to scrub the entire internet (inside or outside of China) of all traces of an event that the Chinese government wants to revise.
Exposing a fraudulent Chinese sports authority is a key piece to a very complex puzzle of exposing a government who will do *anything* to prosper. I just wish it was another country besides the U.S. who won so many silvers and bronzes behind the Chinese. It's sad, but one thing that easily trumps the world's scorn for human rights abuses and oppression is the world's sanctimonious ire towards the people of the United States of America.
Johny is being sarcastic.
________________________________
"序号","姓名(中)","性别","出生日期","籍贯","出生地","注册单位","备注"
"序号" Serial Number
"姓名(中)" Name (Chinese)
"性别" Gender
"出生日期" Date of Birth
"籍贯" Phylogenic Residence
"出生地" Birth Place
"注册单位" Registration (Sponsoring) Institution
"备注" Note
________________________________
"注册" Registration
"确认" Confirmed
"首注" First Time Registration
We must not forget "He" is not the only member accused of being underage.
I performed a Google search today for LinLin Deng, who has allegedly been pictured missing a deciduous toot, and picked up a hit from IMDB.
Here's the URL: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3099530/ (I have archived a PNG and PDF print of this site.)
Deng's birthday according to IMDB:
21 March, 1995
One wonders from which source did this birth date originate, and how long ago it was listed...
We must not forget "He" is not the only member accused of being underage.
I performed a Google search today for LinLin Deng, who has allegedly been pictured missing a deciduous toot, and picked up a hit from IMDB.
Here's the URL: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3099530/
(I have archived a PNG and PDF print of this site.)
Deng's birthday according to IMDB:
21 March, 1995
One wonders from which source did this birth date originate, and how long ago it was listed...
From an AP article: "Even China's own Yang Yun, a double bronze medalist in Sydney, said during an interview aired on state broadcaster China Central Television that she was 14 during the 2000 Games." If China could falsify documents in the past, what's to stop them from falsifying them now? Thus, the question of whether Chinese government documents (i.e., passports, identity cards) can be trusted can be answered with a resounding "No!"
But guys,
It sucks because it is pointless, and it is pointless because:
1) China will never admit that they did forgery (cheating at the state level). If they need to provide with forgeries they will do it. They do it constantly and they won´t admit otherwise. Science, illustrates very well the concept. In science, for them lying is NOT a moral-ethical issue. They simply do not give the same value to it, as other cultures do.
There is one man however I want to mention here, a chinese one who is a science-cop of fraud buster. He is chasing all the cases of fraud by chinese plp related to science. it gives me the cramps. His site is blocked in China (Dear Grace, can you check it? I bet not; http://www.xys.org/).
http://fangzhouzi-xys.blogspot.com/2007/12/fang-zhouzi.html
So if lying is a scientific-state-supported policy,
Why not then the sports?
2) The COI sucks because they do not want to embarrass the host country. But everybody knows that the COI is a crappy institution that does not care any more about ethics or the well being of the athletes. The COI should ban China to participate in the next olimpics in gymnastic competitions as it did with North Korea.
3) To all these Happy_living_in_China: We do not discuss here if Chinese people is nice or not. They are, and I know it by a fact.
They just simply do not have a choice to do the right thing. There is so much peer-pressure in the system, that lying is a way to escape punishment of being a deception to the big father_state.
But, Chinese people won´t have any right, or choice or freedom to express anything about the matter. And when they do have because they are abroad, they are so afraid to do it... that they never do.
Do not underestimate the brain-wash power (this does not only apply to China!)
So, to all these crappy supporters of chinese regime, remember tiananmen square masacre in 1989, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989, that was treated as an "incident". Bullshit.
And we should not forget either that there are many chinese people as well fighting against this, and we should show more respect for them.
In the case of the athletes:
These poor kids were "selected to go to the Olympics", I do not think they had any choice in the matter.
So it doesn´t matter. We are facing here different cultural standards feeded by a whole world afraid of an emerging economy. And this is enough to kill the spirit of the games, but NOT THE TRUTH. The whole world knows that, and I feel very sorry for all these worldwide competitors who did not have a fair competition.
I submitted billypan's blog entry to digg, you can digg it here if you want:
http://digg.com/olympics/More_Evidence_that_He_Kexin_Chinese_Gymnast_isn_t_16
Thanks to car17yn71 for the babelfish translation link.
I am a parent of a competitive gymnast who has travelled to China a few years ago. We have actual video footage of Jiang Yuyuan and her teammates practicing. Really good footage of her doing her beam. She was very young then as well as the girls that were practicing with her. They were considered the "feeder team" that feeds into the National team. It was a once in a lifetime chance for my daughter to work out with the Chinese in their highly secured National gym. The girls are very well trained, very young and conditioned. I don't have a problem with 14 year olds competing at the Olympics, but I think it should be fair for all countries. Since it is a rule right now, if China is found guilty they should lose the medals.
I would like to comment to a blogger about why this issue is so big, for those of us in the gymnastics world. Nastia Luikin would have been able to compete at the last summer Olympics if the rule was not in place. But the US followed the Olympic sanctions and she had to wait until 2008. Nastia would have done fantastic at that time, too. Gold. And yes, it is true that the younger the gymnast, the more flexible they are and no fear. As they mature, fears set in, flexibility is less, and the weight change is a problem for beam routines. They must learn balance again. I can see why China would want to use younger gymnasts but they should follow the rules. It needs to be fair for all Countries competing.
First of all, great job in uncovering the documents. Second, I believe this is corruption not only in the Chinese but also in the International Gymnastics Federation. Back in 2002, or basically from 2001 to 2004, multiple Romanian gymnasts have admitted to being underage at previous Worlds or Olympics. The Romanian journalists even followed the trail of the real birth certificate of another girl who denied being underage while competing at the Worlds. It is worth mentioning that these frauds by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation and the Romanian government spread over the last 20 years, some during Communism, but also some in most recent years, after Romania became "democratic".
Back then, a similar investigation was launched by the IGF but no medal had been taken away nor any suspension against Romanians was given. At the presidency of the IFG was, same as today, Bruno Grandi (74 years old this year). Not coincidentally IGF found it hard to turn a verdict against its vice-president, Nicolae Vieru, also president of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation at the time. Vieru, also in his 70s, was with the Romanian gymnastics for over 40 years. His declarations through that time (2001-2004) ranged from : "I have no clue" to "a lot of countries were doing the same thing" to finally admitting the fraud but saying that he copied the practices of other countries when he falsified the ages of gymnasts.
I hope that this time the IGF will act differently. But honestly, I have very little hope.
A Romanian
Dude, just have Google (or some other translator) translate the entire page.
In a Mozilla-based browser, there should be a Translate entry under Tools which will do this. (I use SeaMonkey. YMMV.)
Otherwise, drop the link into the address bar and Search using Google. Click Translate under the result.
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