International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge was interviewed in Singapore while there inspecting preparations for the first ever Youth Olympic Games this August.
… he warned the IOC would not tolerate anyone cheating by faking their age to meet entry requirements, as has happened at Olympics in the past.
“It is true that in the past there has been cheating both by pretending that they were older, in sports like gymnastics, or by pretending they were younger than the age category in some team sports,” he said.
“We definitely are going to follow that. We will be relying very much on the National Olympic Committees and the national federations because they are running sport on a day-to-day basis.
“If we suspect any cheats, we will be tough, there’s no doubt about that.”
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The timing of this statement could not be worse for Gymnastics China.
Recall that the FIG declared Dong Fangxiao guilty of being underage at the 2000 Olympics.
The only defence offered by Luo Chaoyi, director of the Gymnastics Center of the General Administration of Sport in China, was that Fangxiao was not underage. But that after retirement she and her family for some reason contrived to lower her age in all subsequent documentation. I joking called this forging her own passport.
Why and how Dong would do this is so ludicrous a suggestions that I’m sure the IOC must sanction that athlete and her Federation.
Especially now that Jacques Rogge has declared himself tough on age cheats.
There’s almost certain to be age falsification scandals in some sports in Singapore.
I’ve not heard any specific calendar date for an IOC ruling on what to do about the medals won by Dong Fangxiao and her team in Sydney. Leave a comment if you know.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 