China: The Smog-Filled Land Where Nothing Is Real

In case you hadn't heard, all of those spittle-mustachioed grumblings from Bela Karolyi about the ages of the gold-medal winning Chinese gymnastics team may just not be the embittered rants from a slimy old man. He Kexin, "16"-year-old uneven bars specialist is reportedly not of competitive age, thanks to some AP Google-searching which revealed two instances in the Chinese press where she (He) was listed as 13-years-old. Zhang Hongliang, some sort of badge-wearing China gymnastics official at the Games, insists it's a mistake and that He's age in the paper ain't nothing but a number:

"It's definitely a mistake," Zhang said of the Xinhua report, speaking in a telephone interview. "Never has any media outlet called me to check the athletes' ages." Asked whether the federation had changed their ages to make them eligible, Zhang said: "We are a sports department. How would we have the ability to do that?" "We already explained this very clearly. There's no need to discuss this thing again."

Thank you for your time! So...how far do you press this issue? If the U.S. starts prying into this isn't this going to further embarrass the Chinese IOC who've already been hoodwinking the crap out of everybody along the way with this spectacle? Does China even care that this is cheating? Probably not. In their minds, they won. None of their golden competitors got spooked and fell off the balance beam when it mattered. Tonight: remember to watch the Philadelphia Eagles undrafted free agents shuffle around aimlessly against the Carolina Panthers. Tomorrow: the second part of the Salisbury transcript and the merciful end to this awful, awful week. Thnk y fr yr cntnd spprt f Ddspn. Stunning. I Would Have Never Guessed He's Still Prepubescent, But Does It Really Matter? [Fan IQ]