My daughter is twelve just now, and all of her visible milk teeth have grown back in a long time ago, so I don’t think that a missing front tooth is much to go on - more likely it got knocked out in an accident. If you don’t trust a passport, I don’t see why you would trust a birth certificate - in many countries, Olympic participation is ’sponsored’ at a very high level, and I don’t see why you would entirely trust either document. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter to the competition, anyway.

Since there is absolutely no way the Chinese government can forge a birth certificate, that is the only way to go.

YEAH! “16″ RIGHT! 16 in some arcane Chinese calendar.

NO WAY are many of those little girls 16 in Western chronological terms

If the IOC’s rules state an athlete must be of a certain age to compete, then it should be the responsibility of the athlete and his or her sponsor country to provide proof of age. Additionally, the IOC should perform some type of independent verification.

That being said, I believe age limits are pointless and should be overturned. If an athlete has the ability to compete on an international level, they should not be restricted nor disqualified due to age.

I would say that actually the dangers are real for anyone under the age of 16 in female and should be older in males to be doing movements (as much as you must practise these types of moves.) continually over and over. bones have not stopped growing which means you are hurting yourself continually through your growth time. For all sports saftly and some people common sense meter (because there are people who have none go figure) rules are established to have the check and balances in place. Sadly they do look really young! CHINA CHEAT NO WAY…..how many poeple were already thrown out from their country for drugs this year just in olympic type sports (search it you will find it). Guilty….China quit exploiting little girls (wow that sounds like the coach)

Birth certificates (together with passports) have already been produced showing the gymnasts’ correct age which have been accepted by the IOC and the FIG. My sister-in-law is Chinese and at age 30, looks so much younger that she had to produce her driver’s licence to get into a bar! For Westerners - who tend to look older than they actually are - it’s falsehood and self-deceiving to apply looks as a measure of age. It seems very curious to me that firstly, Americans are the ones who have been the ones who jump the gun and leap into conclusions without producing any solid evidence (using old State-run news articles of the gymnasts’ ages is hardly solid proof or evidence, especially when the same newspapers are normally not trusted for their integrity (or lack of). You can’t have it both ways - disbelief some time when it suits and then, believe some other article when it suits. By branding someone and pronouncing them guilty without proof is to go against the very democratic freedoms that we hold onto so dearly - because we are presuming the accused to be guilty - which goes against the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. This is simply not on and it reeks of prejudice, bianess and simple raw discrimination. And if hard, solid evidence cannot be found, then, as civilised, freedom loving people with a sporting spirit, we should accept the judges’ decision as final. If we don’t do this and show the world our own fairness and decency, one day, that which we accuse others of, will come back to haunt us.

Underage gymnasts? Maybe not…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtB5VLxOBsQ

i would say age really doesnt matter if ders 10,11,12 year old kids that can win the gold medal then thats just embarrassing for the arguers