Peoples Republic of Cheaters

An Olympic flashback moment...

...because of the HUGE news this week that you may have missed:
Yup, China's girls' gymnastics team was stripped of their bronze medals because at least one of the gymnasts was under the mandatory competition age of 16 - the gymnast above was 14 when she competed during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney (when the competitors are that young, the women's team is properly called the girls' team).

As a result, the China lost the team bronze medal and Team USA is awarded the bronze - albeit 10 years later.

I want to know when the China's 2008 is busted for having under-aged competitors. I blogged about this back when I was at the women's team final competition in Beijing. Here's a picture I took of the teams... there is NO WAY that the Chinese girls on the left are 16 years old!

This story is a lot bigger than it seems. So what, who cares, some athletes cheated and were busted... you say that happens all the time? The difference here, however, is that unlike taking illegal performance enhancing enhancing drugs, which can be done individually with a personal doctor, this cheating required government officials in multiple levels to forge birth certificates and passports. This is government involvement in the cheating, and that's where the story goes from big to huge.

Cheating is rampant in China. I unfortunately had to witness it during my two years studying in Shanghai... from classmates texting each other during the test to admitting to studying "live" GMAT and GRE tests that are available online. I don't know how you can solve this problem, as the Chinese don't see cheating as wrong - it is deception that gives them an advantage. My classmates know I never cheated. In a small way, it makes graduating #1 from my MBA program that much sweeter, that maybe they learned that non-cheaters can and do win.

But unfortunately, very few will actually notice the significance of this gymnastics story, and China will keep on with their cheating ways...