Digg thisUPDATE 2: Just for fun — Here is a look at what U.S. editorial cartoonists are doing with the He Kexin kerfuffle. Click to enlarge.
UPDATE: China Digital Times has a November 3, 2007 report from the Xinhua News Agency describing He Kexin as 13 years old. And on the same day (courtesy of The University of Hong Kong’s “China Media Project”), the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily also reported that He was 13.
This story is just getting interesting. The Times of London is reporting that the International Olympic Committee is opening up an official investigation into the age of Chinese gymnastics gold medalist He Kexin:
An IOC official told The Times that because of “discrepancies” that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals.
The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed today to have uncovered Chinese government documents that he says prove she is only 14 - making her ineligible to compete in the Olympics - rather than 16, as officials in Beijing insist is her age.
Mike Walker, a computer security expert, told The Times how he tracked down two documents that he says had been removed from a Chinese government website. The documents, he said, stated that He’s birth date was January 1 1994 - making her 14 - and not January 1 1992, which is printed in her passport.
The Times article is a fascinating read, which also includes the real name of “Stryde Hax,” the computer security consultant who uncovered a host of cached documents on Chinese search-engine servers that seem to peg He Kexin as a 14-year-old. If so, there’s gonna be some gold medals re-assigned. And the top of the Olympic medal standings could even be determined by the outcome.
Sports Illustrated writer E.M. Swift has a sturdy oak paddle laid out for the IOC, accusing the body of wearing blinders at the outset of what was bound to be a corrupt process:
Cheating is cheating. The IOC spends millions of dollars trying to ferret out drug cheats. Yet they ignore allegations of institutionalized cheating by an authoritarian government that has the ability to alter the dates on a passport anytime it wants. The IOC’s response to the whole underage gymnast controversy? One statement saying that they’d checked out the passports of the gymnasts in question and they were in order. Any other questions should be directed to the FIG [Federation International Gymnastics]. All’s well in China. Let the Games begin. (How young do the Chinese gymnasts look? Check out the photos here.)
It’s an outrage. For the IOC to sit idly by while an inept organization like the FIG — the geniuses who meekly asked Paul Hamm to return his gold medal four years ago because their judges screwed up in the middle of the competition — allows the Chinese to operate behind a cloak of secrecy makes a mockery of the concept of fair play. Asking the FIG to certify that China’s gymnasts are really 16 is like asking the International Cycling Federation to do its own drug testing. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. The three monkeys ride again.
Ouch. He has a point.
Deceiver finger-snaps also for The Epoch Times, a publication of the Falun Gong spiritual Chinese sect, which had confirmation from the IOC several hours before much bigger news outlets.
You’ve seen her star turn opposite Denzel Washington in 
