American's research revives Chinese gymnast age query

BEIJING — Faced with growing doubt about whether medal-winning Chinese gymnasts were too young to compete this month, the International Olympic Committee has asked the International Gymnastics Federation to look into the issue and "put to rest once and for all the questions," a committee spokeswoman said Friday.

Press reports, including one in today's Times of London, have accused the Chinese government of hiding documents that would have barred women gymnasts such as He Kexin, who won two gold medals in Beijing, from competing.

The Times story said U.S. computer expert Mike Walker found two documents that had been removed from a Chinese government Web site showing He was only 14 years old. Olympics rules require gymnasts be 16 years old in an Olympic year.

The Chinese women gymnasts won six medals in total, including two gold.

IOC spokesman Giselle Davies, however, said the committee had already received documents such as birth certificates showing the gymnasts were old enough to compete. Davies would not specify how many gymnasts or which of them were under scrutiny.

"We've received some information which puts the matter to rest," Davies told reporters at a regularly scheduled Friday news conference. "There's no question from our perspective."

Davies, however, said more information from the gymnastics federation's inquiry would likely come out by the end of Friday. She said the federation was working with the Chinese national federation on the issue.

Wang Wei, executive vice president of the of the Beijing Olympics organizing committee, said Friday the Chinese delegation had submitted enough documents to prove its women gymnasts were old enough to compete.

"If [the gymnasts] hadn't been cleared, they wouldn't have participated in the Games," Wang said.

The U.S. gymnastics team, which lost several key competitions to the Chinese, called for an investigation into the matter. Davies, however, stressed the IOC had not requested an investigation or a disciplinary committee inquiry.

"U.S.A. Gymnastics has always believed this issue needed to be addressed by the [International Gymnastics Federation] and IOC," said Steve Penny, president of U.S. gymnastics team in a statement. "An investigation would help bring closure to the issue and remove any cloud of speculation from this competition."

Walker told The Times that he was not a sports fan but wanted to see if Chinese authorities were lying. He said he found two Microsoft Excel spreadsheets on the Chinese government's official sports Web site — www.sport.gov.cn — that mentioned her name and had recently been removed.

Walker said he used a Chinese search engine, Baidu, and found the missing documents in its cache.

The documents were issued by the General Administration of Sport of China, he said.

McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.