I mean c'mon. Really?

In watching the women's team gymnastics the other night, I think we were all thinking it. No way some of those girls on the Chinese team were 13, let alone 16. But if their state-issued passports say so, they must be 16, right? Previous reports from Chinese state-run media say otherwise.

Granted, those little girls are incredible athletes, and they deserved to win. And I don't post this out of any pro-USA patriotic fervor. The United States lost on a couple unfortunate, big-time biffs. But I think a lot of people thought that something was definitely rotten in the state of Beijing.

This seems, to me, to be yet another issue the FIG and the IOC are having in policing their house. Let's not forget the gold medal fiasco (see Gold Medal Controversy) surrounding Paul Hamm in 2004, in which the head of the FIG sent a letter to Hamm asking him to return his gold medal after judges determined, after the fact, that they made a mistake in their initial scoring of a Korean gymnast.

I guess considering this sport gets pretty much no attention from me for 206 weeks out of every 2008, there has to be some scandal to keep people interested. It will be interesting to see if there is any action/investigation into the Chinese women's team.