IOC reportedly probing Chinese gymnast's age

All I have to say is great!

Anybody with eyes can tell that she was too young to compete and that she did not deserve that gold medal she won in the high-bar event.

Hopefully the gold medal will be awarded to the true deserved winner Nastia and the United States.

China should feel disgraced and if this cover-up is what they wanted to show to the world this Olympic games, they definitely got their point across.

I say NOT old enough!

I'm thrilled that the IOC is investigating this. If there is sufficient proof that He and possibly others on the Chinese team are underage, then they should be stripped of their medals and China stripped of its team gold. One disgrace of this Olympics is the FIG's attitude towards these rumors. No investigations or probes--just assurances that passports were the official method of age determination and that the birth dates on the passports fit with the cutoff.

Let her keep the medals. She did earn them and taking them away now won't help the fact that she was too young. But, ban the Chinese from Olympic competition for 4 years as punishment.

I feel that if she is found to be under the age of 16, then the IOC has an obligation to strip her of her medals, and anyone else found to be underage as well. It's pathetic that Chinese officials would go that far to ensure they get the most gold medals in the Olympics. However, I think that they will try to explain their way out of it, to make it look like we don't know anything about them or their so-called "democracy" they say we don't understand.

The IOC needs to do the right thing when it comes to countries not playing by the rules. If the girls are found to be underage, the IOC should indeed strip them of their gold medals, as well as sanction China by not allowing them to participate in any future Olympic games (winter or summer) for a set period of time. Granted, the girl did win the gold medals, but it wasn't an even playing field, and that's what the Olympics should really be about.

I think it is disgraceful of the Chinse to exploit young girls and lie about their age in any circumstance. Anyone with fairly good vision could tell most of the body types of the Chinese gymnastists were under developed and were those of young teens not mid teen girls. Give back the mdals!

The girls from the other nations clearly looked much older than the Chinese girls. I agree with all the above comments, including #5. It's disgraceful for the Chinese to exploit these girls, by lying about their ages to try to garner more medals. I would think that fudging government documents such as passports is a felony! I wouldn't have a problem if it were a level playing field and all countries were able to send their very best, regardless of age. If a country has an awesome 14 year old gymnast, she would need to wait until she was 18 to compete, and she may not be at her prime at that time.

She looks 10. Women's gymnastics has been a fiasco, but then the Olympics is a business privately owned by around 50 of Europe's richest families. The Olympics business is almost pure profit because businesses and governments fall all over themselves doing free work just to be seen.
I personally think the Olympics should be eliminated.

There is absolutely no doubt that she is not even close to 16 and I do not believe the other two that are under suspicious are old enough either. I the whole Chinese gymnast team should be disqualified and lose all their medals. There is also no doubt that He's double bar routine was in no way as good as Nastia. She doesn't deserve that gold no matter how old she is.

I think that the entire Chinese women's gymnastic team should be DQ'd if these gymnasts prove to be 14 years old, as we suspect. The American team should get their gold medals and Nastia should get the gold in the uneven bars that went to He Kexin. Cheating is not acceptable, whether it is the host country that cheats or some other country.

The true Olympian spirits rises from years of training and it has been the focus of these games. Since the IOC took a severe stance on doping, this matter is the same nevertheless! Cheating is cheating no matter how you disguise it and will truly stick its head out. The Chinese has to come clean now to save face or else take the severe wrath that will follow. They may be leading in the glory for gold but to what price. In the true spirit of the games, let the truth be known NOW!

The true Olympian spirits rises from years of training and it has been the focus of these games. Since the IOC took a severe stance on doping, this matter is the same nevertheless! Cheating is cheating no matter how you disguise it and will truly stick its head out. The Chinese has to come clean now to save face or else take the severe wrath that will follow. They may be leading in the glory for gold but to what price. In the true spirit of the games, let the truth be known NOW!

I feel sorry for He, as she's a great gymnast and I do think she deserved her medals. However, the team she is on and represents (at least I think) didn't follow the rules, and that should be punished. I think stripping the medals would be punishment enough, and would shame China.

I don't think the whole team should be DQ'ed, but if you can't follow the rules, you shouldn't be allowed to play. Athletes that use performance enhancing drugs (and even equine athletes as we have seen these past few days) are disqualified and have their medals stripped. Cheating is uncool no matter how you slice it; I thought we all learned this lesson in elementary school.

Do the right thing, IOC!

The reason I am happy with this investigation is that these rules are there and we abided by them. Possibly Nastia was good enough to compete in the last Olympics, but couldn't. As of right now, she may have just this one chance at the Olympics. This girl, He, may have a few more Olympics before her because of the way they tried to work this out (i.e. she could compete next Olympics at the real age of 17ish, then maybe even again). The entire team should bge stripped of their gold medals for this. They all lied about this.

Cheating is cheating, and cheaters must be DQ'd out of fairness to the atheletes and countries that play by the rules. The Chinese Govt cheated and He lied to back that up- she is a cheater. Young age is an unfair advantage in gymnastics- they are fearless and their bodies are tiny and lighter. Her individual medals and the team medals should be stripped, and in fact I think all the female Chinese gymnasts should be DQ'd because of the govt conspiracy to cheat--besides the fact I think at least 2 of the other Chinese gymnasts are underage as well. There is no way He is 16...she looks 10! The scores were so bizarre and unfair on many events as it is, I suspect the Chinese may have paid off some of the judges...the whole thing stinks badly of corruption. I am glad the IOC is finally launching an investigation...the integrity of the Olympics is at stake.

The difficulty with the situation is, while she may have been under the age limit, stripping her(and/or other girls on the team) of her medals really punishes the wrong people. Even if the girls felt that falsifying ages was wrong, they aren't in a position to speak out about it, because they'd put themselves(and possibly their families) at risk if they did something to shine a negative light on their government/Olympic team.

In the end, these girls are really pawns being used a system much larger and more powerful than themselves. The real culprits are those associated with the Chinese gymnastics program(and likely the government) who orchestrated any falsification of documents that allowed this to happen.
If falsifcation of ages is found to have happened, action needs to be taken against those higher-ups in the Chinese gymnastics/Olympic program who orchestrated this, not the girls who were merely the tools of leaders willing to seek glory through any means necessary.

china is so desparate to show the world what a great nation it is and what successful sports programs they have that it is sickening. china is run by a bunch of thugs who care more about pandas than they do about their own citizens. the judging has been terrible, totally skewed towards china. has anybody else noticed the bulk of chinas gold medals have come from events that are judged, not from events that have a definite clear cut winner?

I think anyone not following the rules should be DQ'd. Look what happened in the track and field competition. Rules are rules. If China received the team award and those girls' scores contributed to them getting the team award then strip that medal too.

I'm sick of countries not playing by the rules.

GO USA!!

She is DEFINITELY NOT 16. She should be stripped of her medal. If this is actually true, China should be ashamed of itself.

If it is found that China lied about He's age, not only should He be punished, but China also for creating such a cover up and lying about it.

Given the fact that other American Track athletes have been DQ'd for simply "stepping on a track line" (even though they didn't even go into another lane) it seems that competition rules should be equally enforced.
The problem here is that this young lady has been used by her country & she has had to tow the Party line and lie about her age. That is not really her fault.
On the other hand, her performance was outstanding and it would be a shame to DQ her but other good athletic performers have been DQ'd to comply with the rules.
So, harsh as it seems, she too should be made to follow Olympic rules. China's flagrant disregard for those rules is a symbolic slap in the face of all other nations who have competed in these Olympic Games.

When Marion Jones was caught cheating and was stripped of her medals, her relay teammates also lost theirs. In all fairness, if any of these girls turn out to be underage, the whole team should lose their medals.

On a slightly different note, I thought the judging was abysmal. Yeah, the Chinese girls are good and the Americans self-destructed to a certain extent, but comparing various individual performances and the deductions taken for similar errors suggests to me that the judges weren't as objective as they should have been. The most obvious example is the individual beam competition.