Faith and Gymnastics, or, Are the Chinese Too Young?

With the Olympics underway at the very same time the school year is getting underway, my colleagues and I have naturally been following the Olympics. I won't dwell on the probable reason for our interest stemming from the excitement of the Games compared to the mind and body numbing of the meetings of pre-planning (that's for another post since I also attended a vestry meeting last night!). However, the Olympic topic we've been focusing on during breaks and at the lunch table is not Michael Phelps's quest to break Mark Spitz's record of gold medals in a single Games, but the age of the Chinese woman's gymnastics team.

A few years ago, the Olympics instituted a rule similar to the one they imposed for figure skating: you have to be at least 16 years old to compete, or turn 16 during the calendar year. They wanted to protect young athletes from being both exploited by their countries or, in the case of gymnastics, used unfairly by their countries. In gymnastics, the younger the athlete, the more amazing the skills they can perform. There is debate about why this is, but much of the advantage to being younger has to do with the fact that they weigh less, so they are able to do more, whipping their bodies around faster and harder, and it is much easier to stop these movements if you weigh less too (I'll skip the physics lesson.)

This morning's NY Times has an article about how more questions have arisen about the Chinese gymnastics team now that they won the team competition yesterday. Like how come one of the girls is missing a tooth, yet has no bruises around her face from a fall, suggesting that it might be a baby tooth that fell out and has yet to be replaced. Also, just looking at the women's/girl's physiques, some seem to have not yet hit that wonderful time of life known as puberty. From the Times' article:

"The Chinese gymnasts lack curves and have an average height of 4 foot 9 and an average weight of 77 pounds. The women on the U.S. team, generally more muscular and shapely than the Chinese, are 3 1/2 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier."

As junior high teachers, my colleagues and I are used to looking at a variety of students who have and haven't hit puberty yet. The Americans look like they have gone through it; the Chinese, not so much.

But the article points out that the Chinese government has provided the passports for their gymnasts, and (surprise!) all of them satisfy the age requirement. A government, especially a totalitarian one, possibly lying in order to avoid a scandal? In the words of Homer Simpson, that's unpossible!

Excuse the heavy-handed, religious connection, but I couldn't help but think about how this Olympic controversy lends itself to a discussion of faith. One of my favorite quotes from the Bible is Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen." As many wiser, smarter, and more knowledgeable people than me have pointed out, it's not faith in something if you can prove it. So sometimes you just have to let go, and have faith.

But at the same time, faith need not be blind or stupid. When there is enough evidence for reasonable doubt, even biblical quotes fail to reassure us. In this gymnastic controversy, I'm not suggesting that we should just have blind faith, though: there is too much evidence that creates doubt for us to have faith in the Chinese government, especially with their history of behavior. And that's what makes this situation difficult. With the International Olympic Committee satisfied by the gymnasts' government-issued passport, there is nowhere to go from here, as frustratingly un-satisfying as that is.

This isn't just sour grapes, though, because Team USA finished second: with all the falls and stumbles in the last rotation, the floor exercise, there was no way we could have won or deserved to do so. The potential falsehoods by the Chinese team, however, is just a travesty of the sportsmanship and spirit of competition that the Olympics stand for, which is why this incident mars the gymnastics competition.

But I have faith that there are plenty of other incidents in these Beijing Games that do and will showcase the amazing spirit and humanity of the Olympics, despite Chinese gymnastics knocking a tooth out of the Games.

And after the first comment on this story, in the interest of balance, here is a Dan Wetzel column on Yahoo! that takes the position that the age thing is just sour grapes by the Karolyis, who Wetzel claims would love to break the rules too.