14 DAY TRIAL // The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) is determined to find out if the media speculations, which said that at least two of the six members of China's gymnastics Olympic team are underage, are true. But the organization that has in sight the right conduct of all gymnastics competitions has even more doubts, namely that the number of the competitors who shouldn't have had the right to be in the Olympics might raise to five.
"In recent days, additional questions have resurfaced, and in the interests of laying the matter to rest and in response to a request from the International Olympic Committee, the FIG has now asked the Chinese Gymnastic Association to submit further documents testifying to the birthdates of the gymnasts," says FIG in a press release, in which the official ages of He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan, Li Shanshan, Deng Linlin and Yang Yilin are doubted.
Meanwhile, the hacker who fanned the flames in the case came with another proof which evidences that the Chinese Olympic Committee might have played dirty in the competition hosted by its country. By removing the punctuation marks in three Chinese official documents, he was able to perform a translation that indicated the real birthday of He Kexin to be 1.1.1994 (two years later than the official date in the gymnast's passport). "That's the three lines in question, from the three documents in question. At this point, I'm going to take a step back, let the experts analyze these documents, and see what the consensus is. I've done my part; citizen journalists of the world, this story is yours now!" wrote Stryde Hax on his blog.
One of the Chinese readers of the blog underscores, on a sarcastic voice, what Chinese officials' approach could be in this particular situation. "Even [if] you live in the US, we will strive our best effort to shut you up. If we can, we will use whatever mean we have, such as lobby the US government and even your own company to over turn you to China and you will be prosecuted immediately without a lawyer/trial."