IOC orders probe over Chinese gymnast's age

Reuters

QUEST FOR TRUTH: An investigation is being launched by the IOC to verify the age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin.

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The IOC has asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate allegations that China's dual gold medal winning gymnast He Kexin is underaged.

New discrepancies about her age emerged yesterday after a US blogger and security consultant, identified as Mike Walker, dug up cached copies of official Excel spreadsheets found on the internet which showed He Kexin's birthday as January 1, 1994.

That would make her just 14-years-old and ineligible to compete in the Olympics where gymnasts are required to turn 16 in the year in which the Games take place.

Rules barring underaged competitors were put into place to avoid exploiting younger gymnasts who are more supple and therefore better equipped to perform some of the routines.

The Times of London quotes IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies as saying that the International Gymnastics Federation, which goes by its French acronym of FIG, has been instructed to look into the allegations.

"More information has come to light that did point to discrepancies," The Times quoted Ms Davies as saying. "We have asked the gymnastics federation to look into it further with the national Chinese federation. If there is a question mark, and we have a concern - which we do - we ask the governing body of any sport to look into ... as to why there is a discrepancy."

The 1.42m (4'8") tall gymnast was part of the Chinese women's team which won gold. She then took an individual gold medal in the apparatus competition. He Kexin and several of her teammates have been dogged by persistent rumours about their age since the start of the Games.

Walker, who blogs under the pseudonym "Stryde Hax ", identified himself as a consultant with the US-based internet security firm Intrepidus Group.

After the initial allegations surfaced, he trawled through the search results on Google, Google China and the Chinese search engine Baidu, uncovering more examples of cached official Excel spreadsheet showing He Kexin birthday as January 1, 1994.

Chinese officials say He Kexin's passport and birth certificate list her as being born on January 1, 1992 - which would make her 16-years-old. When asked about her age recently, He Kexin was quoted as saying: "My real age is 16, I don't care about what other people say, it's none of my business."

Asked about the age controversy earlier this month, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said it was the responsibility of the individual sport federations to check the age of athletes.

Stryde Hax's discoveries support earlier reports regarding He Kexin's age. Earlier, several bloggers found links to news stories and photo captions - in both English and Chinese published last year and earlier this year - which refer to He Kexin as being aged 13. One cached version of a story published in May this year refers to her as being aged 14.

Many of the original links and some of the cached results have since been removed.

He Kexin was at the centre of another controversy earlier this week when she edged out an American competitor for the gold medal in the women's apparatus after a panel of judges - including Australia's Helen Colagiuri - invoked a complicated tie-break formula used for the first time to decide an Olympic competition.

Allegations have been made that two other Chinese gymnasts, Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin, have also had their ages doctored in order to allow them to compete.

- © Fairfax NZ News