Olympic Soap Box

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

OK

Time for a rant and rave. I am really upset after watching the womens USA team lose to China and hearing Bela Karoli talk about how the Chinese team openly cheats by forging the birth certificates of their girls. You would have to be an one-who-thinks-I-am-silly not to see that some of their girls are way way below the 16 year old age requirement and he said they create the passports that allow them to cheat. They also said that the govt takes kids away from their families at age 3 and trains them year round until they are ready to compete and that the kids might see their family once a year. Sounds like a prison sentence to me but what do I know. Here's another sick note I heard about the Chinese. Do you realize that they make soup out of the placentas of their aborted fetuses? I swear to God I heard it on the radio and it was confirmed. Very weird.

That got me to thinking about how communist teams have cheated thru the years in Olympics. Remember the East German women swim team and all the steriod use? Cornelia Ender was the biggest offender, she looked more like a man than Mark Spitz did! LOL

Remember how we used to send our amature athletes to compete in basketball while the communists had players that were paid to compete and train year round. We finally wised up and sent Mr. Jordan and the Dream Team to restore world order and show them how our professionals stacked up against theirs, I think it was an average point win of about 40 per game, if I recall.

And now the girls gymnasts. When you see that one of them is from West Des Moines Iowa, you know that she may train hard but you know she lives in Iowa, not in some government run training camp and you know she gets to eat breakfast with her mom and dad more than once a year!!!

All I can say is I sure am glad I live in the land of the free and the home of the brave!

GO USA!

Now I can get down off my soap box, LOL

Windy

[polarsusd81]

Well said and pretty much sums up my thoughts exactly. You would have to be awfully ignorant to believe all the girls on the Chinese team meet the age requirement.

[Sandmannd]

I agree with you. I sure am glad we live here and have the freedom to choose what we do. Did you hear about the Chinese rowing guy? He showed up late to a race because he thought he was in the third race. Turns out he was in the second. Per the rules, he now can't compete an anymore events this year. What do you think they are going to do to him?

[Sandmannd]

Oh yea, what about the little girl that was too "Ugly" to perform during the opening of the games? How about all the dang smog over there? Man it's a wonderful place there isn't it. Oh yea, how about the stabbing of Bachman?

I understand their values are different than ours, but Wow, that would be a horrible place to live.

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Sand,

Not to mention that they regularly abort female babies since they are limited to one child and want to continue the family blood line. Not sure if this practice is still in place but I know it used to be. Kind of hard to watch Dubbya over there but I know he subscribes to the Michael Corleone credo of keeping your friends close but your enemies closer!

Windy

[Sandmannd]

I don't know if they still abort, but being a parent that adopts, I know lots of folks go to China for baby girls cause they don't want them. I recently met a guy that is orignally from there and he says it's not as bad as it looks. Also, if you have the money you can have more than one child you just have to pay a one time fine. I guess it works for them, but I still love the good old USA.

[Duffman]

Quote:

How about all the dang smog over there?

That's what happens when ya outlaw enviromentalists.

[Meaney]

I agree 1,000,000 percent!!!!!!!!!

[Meaney]

go USA

[IFallsRon]

When do they jam the figure skaters into the show?

[PierBridge]

Sounds like sour grapes because OUR girls Choked in the Big One!

[Meaney]

When do they jam the figure skaters into the show?

winter olympics..in 2 years

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Right after the bobsledders, IFalls! LOL

Windy

[eyepatrol]

I understand that, according to the olympic rules, competing in gymnastics under the age of 16 is illegal. And sure, maybe China's girls are under aged. But think of it this way......they were outstanding for whatever age they are now. Imagine how much better they would be if they were all 16 or older with more experience under their belt! Nobody would stand a chance.

I heard that too......taking the children when they're 3 and putting them into training camps. I guess if China feels that's what they need to do in order to be competitive, then so be it. It's cruel and inhumane though. Too bad their priorities are winning at all costs and not living freely at all costs. I think the USA has proven that you don't need to steal babies in order to put together a winning team(s).

[goblueM]

I don't care about us losing out on the gold that much - we screwed up, they beat us.

I DO have a HUGE issue with the under 16 thing. The one girl has freaking baby teeth, for cripes sake. She looks about 10. Which means she might be 14, TOPS.

I have big issues with the way China manages its athletes in general, taking them from their families, forcing training, and then not taking care of them once they are older and have been run into the ground.

Wish the IOC would look into the age thing, they are clearly cheating

[Meaney]

I agree that they did well no matter what their age is....but the fact is rules are rules, (if they cheated that is.....)

[Shack]

My sister started in Gymnastics when she was around 7-8 (maybe even younger). She went away to allot of gymnastics camps and clinics even that young. Being on the private teams, school teams, she lived Gymnastics.

She did win state, she never went to the Olympics, but it got here an almost free ride threw College.

I know there are American parents who will ship of their kids for a chance for a trip to the Olympics. Look at some of our elite in our country, they where shipped off to schools at age 4 and almost do not see their parents. Most times, it what is needed to get that head start.

I would love to know the average start age of the American girl’s team. I am sure they where doing tumblers by 2 or 3.

I am sure China treats these gymnasts very well and rumors start every day.

But, like said rules are rules and if China did break them, there was a reason behind this. Their older options must have not been to good.

[eyepatrol]

Anyone hear/read about the Swedish greco-roman wrestler who nearly attacked the ref after he lost the match to get to the gold medal round? Then he nearly refused to wrestle in the bronze medal match, but came out, won it, then during the medal ceremony he threw his medal on the floor and walked away. Apparently he felt like the match he lost was refereed unfairly.

What a crock! Even if it was refereed unfairly, you don't just go and throw the medal on the floor and walk out in the middle of the ceremony! What a pouting cry baby! Take it like a man and contest the loss the way it should be contested.

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

Shack,

This ain't rumor, it was said by the announcers, when they were talking about the 20 year old Chinese gymnast. She had been in their "program" since age 3 and sees her parents once a year. She got homesick and wanted to go back and her parents told her no because they were paid too much money to have her in the program.

Eyepatrol,

Did not hear about that yet, reminds me of past athletes who refused their medals. Got to look into that.

Windy

[mnwild]

Hey Windy- Here is the article

Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian threw away the bronze medal he won in the Greco-Roman category in disgust in a protest over judging in his semifinal bout.

Abrahamian was beaten in the 84 kg class by eventual gold medal winner Andrea Minguzzi of Italy but was disgusted by the verdict, shouting at the referee before confronting the judges. The Athens silver medal winner had to be restrained by teammates and later went on to win a bronze medal match.

But the row continued at the medal ceremony as he only grudgingly mounted the podium and after receiving his medal made a point of taking it off and leaving it in the center of the competition mat.

Swedish fans in the arena disagreed strongly with the original decision, jeering the judges, while coach Leo Myllari also weighed in.

"It's all politics," he said.

The medal was later returned to the sport's governing body.

[dan z]

I get frustrated when I see all these young girls competing for olympic medals. are these not the mens/womens sports I think china stretches the bar on ages and it shows they got caught

[fluidmotion]

This thread is a bit odd, it just seems like your just trying to show the worst parts of China without trying to understand the culture and the people.

I have been to China several times and am going again at the end of the week. I am actually an American born Chinese. I was born and raised right here in MN, although lived in CA for a few years as well.

I can't respond to the under-age comments, because it is very hard to know for sure whether or not their documents were doctored. It is also hard to tell whether they are or are not under age. In MN, there is not much of an asian population so you may not know, but when I was living in CA, it is very hard to tell whether some of the Asian girls are under-age.

As for the training. I believe many of the star athletes in the USA train since they are extremely young as well. In China, the children that are taken to do these types of athletic training are usually from the countryside. The country side is actually very poor as China is still considered a 3rd world country. So, if your child was chosen to become one of the star athletes and to represent your country when you are a poor farmer from the country-side, wouldn't you want your child to have that opportunity? Those parents know that they won't see their child much afterwards, but they want their children to have a good life, rather than live in poverty....

As for the girl that was too "ugly" to sing. This again is very much a cultural difference. Appearance in Asia seems to be very important. Korea and Japan (I don't have statistics, but I'm guessing) probably have some of the highest numbers of cosmetic surgeries of any country. That is the only explanation I have to offer. I don't agree with their actions, but I won't judge them for choosing to do that. Even in the interviews with the children, they just were happy to be part of the opening ceremony.

The smog actually isn't anything worse than LA or NYC. I was in Beijing one year ago and I didn't see anything extremely out of the ordinary for smog. Of course, there is smog still, but some of our larger cities have equivalent quantities of smog.

Finally, the stabbing of Bachman is tragic, but I don't think you can blame China much for that. Again, I don't have statistics but I can imagine that their murder rate is significantly lower than the USA. They will institute capital punishment for murders, drugs, etc. This seems to be a major deterrent as they aren't very forgiving for these major crimes.

I will touch base on the 1 child rule as well. Everyone is allowed one child, but if you are to have more, you have to pay for schooling and have an extra amount in taxes that you have to pay. For a country that is overpopulated, this really is ideal. If you look at India, their overpopulation is a very big problem and they have no real way to control it. Their population continually grows, while in China, their population has stopped growing (if they didn't, they would have many more problems, food shortages, etc). The people there seem to be more than happy to abide by just having one child.

[PierBridge]

http://www.trigeiablog.com/

[Windy City Walleye Hunter]

I'll take that medal...hsolist here I come!

What a tool, like Ron White says...YOU CAN'T FIX STUPID.

Windy

[eyepatrol]

Finally something I can agree with you on Windy!