The real He Kexin’s age! two gold medal stolen by the cheating Chinese?
There has been a controversy as to He Kexin’s actual age. Her 2008 passport and the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) list her date of birth as January 1, 1992, which would make her 16 years, during the 2008 Olympic opening ceremonies and therefore old enough to compete. However, before the 2008 Olympics, He’s age was reported by the Chinese press, including the state news service, Xinhua, as 13 in 2007 and 14 in 2008 in news articles that were later taken off-line. Her birth date has also been given on several registration lists of the General Administration of Sport in China, the Chengdu Sports Bureau and other registration sources as “1994-1-1″ (January 1, 1994), which would make her 14 years old during the Opening ceremonies, and therefore too young to participate in the 2008 Summer Olympics.In addition, in a November 2007 speech in Wuhan, Chinese sporting official Liu Peng introduced He as a 13-year-old.
Chinese officials have denied the allegations, stating in August 2008 that Xinhua had not confirmed He’s age before filing their news reports. He herself, speaking to reporters after the Olympic team final, noted, “my real age is 16. I don’t pay any attention to what everyone says.” On August 2, the International Olympic Committee stated that they would not investigate the discrepancy in He’s reported age, stating that the FIG’s own verification system would be acceptable proof of eligibility. The FIG, in responding to the situation, stated that they would not ask for additional proof of age beyond the passport already supplied by Chinese officials.
How old are you He Kexin?
However, the matter continues to be a source of controversy among members of the gymnastics community and the media. The Times reported that a computer expert “Stryde” working for a New York based firm called the Intrepidus Group was able to access cached pages on the search engine Baidu showing He to be underage after websites concerning the athlete on the search engine Google were blocked.
On August 21, the IOC announced that, in light of the new evidence, they had asked the FIG to reopen the investigation into He and her teammates’ ages. On Friday August 22, 2008, the IOC said they had not uncovered any evidence of wrongdoing “so far” and expressed confidence that the Chinese Federation’s documents were correct. However, the FIG held an emergency meeting about the situation on August 23 and requested additional documentation for every gymnast on the Chinese team, with the sole exception of team captain Cheng Fei. On August 24, a Chinese official addressed the registration lists found online, stating that the discrepancy was due to an administrative error which took place when He was transferred between teams while participating in the InterCity Games in 2007.The FIG has not set any official timeline on closing the investigation, stating on August 23, “this process may take some time, but in due course, the FIG will make a full report of our findings to the International Olympic Committee.” The IOC confirmed on August 28 that the FIG investigation was still active and in progress.
How hacker found proof of He Kexin’s age
In his spare time Mike Walker likes to find things on web servers that were never meant to be found.
On Monday, after curiosity got the better of him, the 33-year-old computer security consultant toiled for hours without success, as he tried to dig up more information about the allegedly under-aged Chinese gymnast He Kexin.
On Tuesday, after redefining the parameters of his Google Hack, he hit the jackpot. Bingo! The mother lode.
On Google’s cache he found evidence of a record of He Kexin’s birth on a spreadsheet belonging to the General Administration of Sport of China – the country peak sports body.
But the data had been removed.
On the Chinese search engine Baidu, he went one better. He found two caches of Excel spreadsheet which had been published on the web and both of them showed He Kexin’s birthday as January 1, 1994.
The cache is the snapshot of web pages crawled by search engine spiders which map the web and database their findings.
The following day on Google’s Chinese search engine, google.com.cn, he found yet more cached spreadsheets from the General Administration of Sport of China also showing the birth date as January 1, 1994.
This would make the tiny gymnast – who won two gold medals at the Olympics – 14 years old. Her Olympic credentials list her birth date as January 1, 1992, which would make her 16.
Regulations that were introduced in 1997 by the world gymnastics federation require gymnasts to turn 16 in the year of the Games to be eligible to compete.
“I spent a large amount (of time) failing (to find anything) and a small amount succeeding,” Walker, who works for the Washington DC-based Intrepidus Group.
“It takes a little bit of faith to believe that you can find something out there and sometimes it pays off.
“I put it on Blogger (a free Google blog service) and went out to dinner and the world came calling.”
As a direct result of Walker’s findings and the resulting press coverage that it sparked, the International Olympic Committee yesterday announced that it had called for a review of the age falsification allegations surrounding China’s dual gold medal-winning gymnast.
“We have asked the gymnastics federation to look into what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies on this case. And they’ve been working with the [Chinese] national federation … to have a full clarification on this topic,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies told a news conference yesterday.
Late last night, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) issued a statement saying that it had widened its inquiry into the age falsification claims.
The federation said it had asked the Chinese Gymnastic Association to submit further documents testifying to the birth dates of He Kexin and four fellow gymnasts – Jiang Yuyuan, Li Shanshan, Deng Linlin and Yang Yilin.
“On receipt of these documents, the FIG will forward its conclusions to the International Olympic Committee. It is in the interests of all concerned, not least the athletes themselves, to resolve this issue once and for all,” the statement said.
Walker is still surprised by the reaction to his findings. “It’s become the centre of a maelstrom and international media attention,” he said.
“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,” he said in a blog post.
The governing body of world gymnastics has demanded additional documentary evidence to prove that five gold medal-winning China gymnasts were old enough to compete in the Olympic Games.
The Chinese Gymnastics Association has been asked to supply further evidence to prove the birthdates of Jiang Yuyuan, Li Shanshan, Deng Linlin, Yang Yilin and He Kexin, after more questions emerged over the stated ages of He and Yang.
The five competitors won gold medals in the team gymnastics event, while He became the darling of the host nation after she won gold on the uneven bars and Yang picked up two bronze medals in individual events.
A US computer expert told The Times on Thursday that he had uncovered Chinese government documents proving that He and Yang were only 14. Both appeared to have been registered as two years younger in previous years.
The online documents were the latest pieces of evidence to have emerged in recent months suggesting that the two athletes were two years beneath the minimum age of 16, in a sport where younger gymnasts are thought to have an advantage, being more flexible and thus better able to perform more difficult routines.
In a statement issued last night, the International Gymnastics Federation said that it was demanding additional evidence from the Chinese association “to resolve this issue once and for all”.
The federation did not specify precisely what documents it would require to satisfy itself that the two gymnasts were eligible. However, Lu Shanzan, China’s coach, said that the documents that had now been passed to the federation included He’s present and former passport, her ID card and family residence permit.
Lu said that all of these documents showed her to have been born in 1992 and complained that coaching staff and the girl’s parents were indignant and upset at the investigation. “Surely it’s not possible that these documents are still not sufficient proof of her birth date,” he said. “The passports were issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The identity card was issued by China’s Ministry of Public Security. If these valid documents are not enough to clarify this problem, then what will you believe?”
The investigation has not been reported in the state newspapers. Leading Chinese news websites also failed to cover the story, and yesterday sites running reports of the inquiry appeared to have been closed down. Even the debates of the issue in Internet chat rooms, which raged yesterday morning, disappeared in the afternoon as site-hosting companies moved to censor what could be a sensitive topic.
Some web commentators blamed the Americans for the inquiry and called for a retaliatory investigation of Michael Phelps, the US swimmer, who won eight gold medals at the Water Cube. Others were not surprised by the controversy. One wrote: “They will certainly now say that reports that she was 13 in 2007 were incorrect – so that she keeps her gold medal” – an apparent reference to a theory that He might previously have registered as younger than she was, in order to compete in a Chinese competition.
“Plank of Wood” commented: “Changing one’s age in China, especially in the past, is very common. When I was at school I changed my age to get into the class I wanted. Later I changed it back.” All of these comments had vanished from the web by the afternoon.
The latter point was repeated by a former Chinese sportsman yesterday. He told The Times that in his youth he had once changed his age to participate in competition with younger players. “It used to be very common, but it is getting less and less so,” he said.
How would you strip athlete of a medal?
Under statute of limitations rules, the IOC and other sports bodies can go back eight years to request the return of medals and nullify competition results. This means that even if the He Kexin case becomes a protracted affair, as is likely, the Committee has until 2016 to decide if it wishes to act on the findings of the investigation by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique.
However, once a decision has been reached, action is usually swift. When last year Marion Jones, the American five-time 2000 Olympic champion, admitted using steroids, she was officially stripped of her medals within weeks.
Given that the IOC is based in Lausanne, on the banks of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the usual method of return once the Games have ended is by postal courier. Two athletes have handed their medals straight back in Beijing – Ara Abrahamian, the bronze-medal winning Greco-Roman wrestler from Sweden, and Jong Su Kim, the North Korean shooter who won bronze and silver.
After disqualification, standings are normally readjusted, with the second-place finisher moving up to gold, third to silver and fourth to bronze.
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