China was stripped of a team all-around bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics on Wednesday because it fielded an underage gymnast. Dong Fangxiao was discovered to be 14 at the time of those Games, two years younger than the minimum age requirement.
The medal will be given to the United States team which finished fourth in Sydney. The IOC has asked for China to return the medals "as soon as possible" so they can be reallocated to the U.S. team.
http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/van...urn=oly,237384
Some of the comments on Yahoo, people are like "if a 14 year old can do that stuff, they should keep it". While that is "great" in theory the whole matter is that China cheated. The IOC has instituted age requirements for a reason. All the other countries who participated in those Olympic games followed the age requirement, I'm sorry China the rules just don't magically "not apply to you".
A part of me does feel bad for the participants but their country shouldn't have cheated.
From the sounds of the article the reason they gave these medals "back" to the U.S. is because in 08 it became apparent that China was still sending underage athletes but the IOC "swept it under the rug". I really hope that they go back and look at it.
Even if it had been the U.S. who had been caught cheating, I would say the same thing. They were the dumb butts who cheated and they deserve to have the medal's taken away.
Thoughts?
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