Is Dishonesty Worth the Consequences?

by Briana Koenig

She’s ready to mount the beam; waiting. Her whole body trembles as she knows this is her last big moment, the moment to fly the United States off the charts and hand them the team gold. It is a moment of complete silence and concentration. And yet she still waits. Longer still; it seemed like an eternity. With a deep breath and a heaving noticeable sigh she charged forward and hit the spring board with a loud smash that echoed throughout the complex. Time stood still and everyone held their breath as Alicia Sacramone flipped through the air and attempted to land upright on the balance beam. However, fate was not on her side and she landed just centimeters too far to the right and devastatingly fell to the floor. This single fall skewed the rest of her performances and most likely her last Olympics. And even worse, it threw off the rest of her teammates. Following Sacramone’s disastrous beam routine, she continued on with her floor routine only to fall yet again and step out of bounds to lose almost a full point. To make matters worse, both Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, the predicted all around gold medalists, each stepped out on their first tumbling passes placing the United States even farther behind destined to receive only second best.

To the Americans defense, each member on the girls gymnastics team possess very woman-like features therefore making it physically more difficult to attain the proper skills and higher difficulty levels than other smaller athletes. So why then do the smaller Chinese athletes have an exceptional amount of talent yet look so young? Are they not aware that gymnasts must be sixteen to compete? In fact, while Nastia Liukin stands at five foot two, one of the Chinese gymnasts, Deng Linlin, barely reaches the bottom of Liukin’s neck. There’s something going on here.

Numerous amounts of research have proven that many of China’s Olympian gymnastic gold medalists are underage. He Kexin, China’s strongest competitor on the uneven parallel bars, not only looks underage, but many articles have proven it a fact.

One researcher found that while searching online about the Chinese gymnasts, he stumbled upon an article dated May 23, 2008 explaining that Kexin is a “14 year old new-comer to the national team” obviously stating that she is too young to compete in the Olympics. Interestingly enough, the very same article was seen only hours later but the article was revised. It now stated that He Kexin is a “16 year old new-comer to the national team”. Now math was never my forte but it is apparent that no one can gain two years in only three hour’s time.

But the real question is why? Why would China risk getting caught? Does the marginal benefit really exceed than the marginal cost? Now many would debate this issue but weighing the costs versus the benefits it seems as if the costs far outweigh the benefits. By cheating and taking underage girls to the Olympics, China is risking getting caught even though the Chinese Government is on their side. It was the government who ultimately made and approved their passports with their possibly false birthdates. This says something about the type of people that they are. But the Chinese are also risking losing their hard earned medals and even worse, their exceptional reputation. It can be understood that the Chinese became sucked into the incentives of winning and it seemed as if these “underage” girls exceeded the power and talent of the other possible legal contestants. This power and prestige could be a lure for anyone which could have been the deciding factor for the Chinese.
The Chinese lucked out though. The International Olympic Committee chose to dismiss the issue and trust that China is being honest with their gymnasts’ ages. Whether they were underage or not, this can be an issue of morality. Some think there is nothing wrong with cheating and defying every other country taking part in these Olympics. Yet on the other hand some think that it is unbelievably unfair, dishonest, and that the Chinese can no longer be trusted. Either way, the Chinese got away with possibly a very evil act where the cost to them was definitely worth the benefits and it showed in the standings. Now that the world is educated in the possible malevolent acts of the Chinese it will be exciting to see what kind of gymnasts they bring to the floor in 2012.


http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90779/90867/6416685.html
http://www.politicalforum.com/current-events/44677-china-cheats-olympics-update.html
http://myrealitytelevision.com/2008/08/china-cheats-their-way-to-olympic-gold-in-womens-gymnastics-usa-silvers/