>>>>Wasnt there an age issue with the Chinese gymnasts? Did they crank out some birth certificates?
>>>
>>>Apparently china doesn't do birth certs (or they don't want to show them). Their 'proof' of age is their passports which the government faked to show whatever age they wanted.
>>
>>I figured as much. Some of those kids look like they may be 14 tops. Apparently when you hit 16, you're over the hill.
>
>Bela Karolyi has been saying exactly that, that they're 12-14. He may be biased, with his wife being the U.S. team coach, but that's what it looks like to me, too.
>
>It came up in one of the telecasts the other night why it would be an advantage to compete when you're younger than the stated minimum. The color analyst, Tim somebody, a former U.S. gymnast, said it's because gymnastics takes such a toll on your body, plus burnout. He said that's an even bigger factor in the Chinese system, where the athletes literally start at age 3.
>
>One of my few complaints about the Games so far is the cameras being up so close to the gymnasts. It has been especially noticeable with the U.S. women's team. They're young, too, but that is one media savvy young bunch. You can tell their words and gestures (embraces etc.) are directed half at their teammates and half at the TV audience. They know very well they're not only being watched when they perform, they're being watched and listened to on the sideline. And the coach! (Marta Karolyi, who took over from Bela a few years ago). OMG. You quickly notice how she always positions herself in the ideal camera frame when the camera is over there getting up close and personal. I think she would knock her athletes out of the way if she had to, LOL.

Gymnastics can have a rubber-necking car wreck feeling to it like it did the other night. That poor girl falling off the beam and then tanking on the floor event too... man, good luck forgetting that. Just not the same as falling behind in the 100 fly or getting lit up by Lebron.

Speaking of cameras, here's an interesting article i came across down in Hatteras last week...

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20797485/chinas_allseeing_eye

Thirty years ago, the city of Shenzhen didn't exist. Back in those days, it was a string of small fishing villages and collectively run rice paddies, a place of rutted dirt roads and traditional temples. That was before the Communist Party chose it — thanks to its location close to Hong Kong's port — to be China's first "special economic zone," one of only four areas where capitalism would be permitted on a trial basis.

This is how this Golden Shield will work: Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.