For what it’s worth, many people say that Danica Patrick only wins because she is smaller and weighs less. They never comment on that when she races. I think it’s cheating.

If there were a rule in her sport that drivers had to meet a minimum weight requirement (there’s something like this in horse racing), then you would have a point. Since there isn’t, you are just showing yourself off as a clueless twit once again.

come on now, everyone knows that you don’t pick Jan 1st for a fake ID birthdate.

This was an obvious screwup due to someone in China not understanding the calendar that is used. They go by their own calendar (ever walk into a Chinese restaurant not knowing that it was Chinese new year?). As someone else said, they looked at January 1st as her birthday not realizing that was the opposite of what they should have done. Stupid communists.

I had just seen a documentary on the East German female swimmers who were given steroids for the 72 Berlin Olympics (?)… A lot of them were tuned into men!

I saw that too and made a similar comment at foxsports.com or some other site. Most men are envious of their mustaches.

For what it’s worth, many people say that Danica Patrick only wins because she is smaller and weighs less. They never comment on that when she races. I think it’s cheating.

Wow, you’re a real genius, ain’t ya? We’re talking about breaking rules. There is no rule about women drivers or driver weight requirements. I don’t think her weight has had much of an effect anyway. She hasn’t won too many races. I believe her first win was this year in Japan. With all of the horsepower, these cars are so big and fast that 50 pounds would be negligible. If that’s the best you can do, you are out of your league in this debate.

Thacker, we don’t have a system where all of our three-year-olds are examined for their abilities, and if they show a special aptitude for gymnastics, we take them from their families and supersaturate their training. So it would be ridiculous to make the statement that a fair playing field would apply if we all used 13-year-olds.

I know! Let’s have a competition where we get an equal number of 10-year-olds and 16-year-olds together on a playground and just run them until they drop. Who do you think will be the last ones standing? Any parent can tell you.

Tennman on August 15, 2008 at 3:36 AM

That’s exactly right Tennman, the stuff the chinese put their kids through to get them to olympic standards qualifies as child abuse in the west and has done for a long time now.

Just a few weeks ago, the US swim team was striped of one of it’s medals from the Sydney games because one of the members of the relay team admitted in an interview that the team had been doping.

What are the chances that equal sanctions will be applied here?

If you say none, you win the gold medal.

MarkTheGreat on August 15, 2008 at 7:07 AM

I’ll take that medal thanks Mark.

Man, so much whining. Let them cheat, and kick their ass anyway. Supremacy isn’t gained by complaining.

Darth Executor on August 14, 2008 at 5:41 PM

If only the US was kicking their ass, but at this moment the chinese have 25 golds against the US’ 14. Overall medal counts have the US leading, but lets face it, it’s the gold medals that count.

I also see that he hasn’t read any of the commentary, otherwise he would know that younger girls do have an advantage.

BTW, I saw that a Chinese swimmer was disqualified for a false start. I thought they gave the first false start a do over and only began disqualifying after that. When did that change?

Earlier in the week they showed a clip of a Korean swimmer who was disqualified in Athens for a false start.
I believe he got a gold this time.

I remember talks of the old days (60’s and 70’s) where swimmers would talk about deliberately false starting in an attempt to ice their competitors. Perhaps that’s why they changed the rule.

One of the simple truths of life, Communists, Fascists, Marxists, Environmentalists and Democrats all lie. Not a dime’s worth of difference between them.

You forgot socialist, though that may have been covered under Democrat.

In my opinion, the only difference between a socialist and a communist, is that the communist is being honest about what his goals are.

NASCAR puts restrictor plates on the cars to limit horsepower. There are a lot of fans who disagree with it, but those are the rules that everyone who competes, agreed to abide by.

Now let’s assume that one of the drivers removed his restrictor plate. He wins, but another driver comes within inches of beating him.

Would any one of you declare that since the driver, who followed the rules, almost one, this excuses the driver who cheated?

The FIG and the IOC are the proper bodies to handle this

Would that be fig, as in fig leaf?

She later confessed in a television interview that she was only 14 at the time of the competition and that she and her coaches had lied about her age.

Just a few weeks ago, the US swim team was striped of one of it’s medals from the Sydney games because one of the members of the relay team admitted in an interview that the team had been doping.

What are the chances that equal sanctions will be applied here?

If you say none, you win the gold medal.

I know! Let’s have a competition where we get an equal number of 10-year-olds and 16-year-olds together on a playground and just run them until they drop. Who do you think will be the last ones standing? Any parent can tell you.

I guarantee you that no other country would have been able to field 13 year olds that were that good regardless of the rule. ThackerAgency on August 14, 2008 at 11:23 PM

Jerry Lee Lewis approves.

If Danica weighed 50 lbs more, she’d finish last every race.

Steroids is cheating because it gives you a competitive advantage and that is why they test for it.

But I guarantee you that if Shawn Johnson or Nastia had gone to the Olympics when they were 14, they wouldn’t have been as good as they are now. The announcers said that the Chinese studied Nastia very closely because she was so GOOD, not because she was young. She got better with age as did Shawn.

They should get rid of the age limit. The world championships should be for the best in the world no matter what so long as there isn’t external influences like drugs or a head start. The Chinese gymnasts are the best gymnasts in the world of any age right now.

Mary Lou Retton had knee surgery just a week or two prior to her Olympic debut. It was kept secret to avoid the hype and pressure during the games, but I suspect it also didn’t put the best face on the sport.

None of this takes anything away from some amazing performances by the Chinese, but the age IS a competitive advantage from an injury point of view. They stole the gold medal.

But I keep going back to the fact that these “underage” girls still had to perform. So that should be the incredible part of the story.

This is exactly right. This is a WORLD championship. It isn’t like a pitcher who is too old in the little league world series striking all the other kids out. The ‘cheating’ doesn’t have to do with the actual competition because the RULE was not put in place to keep you from having an advantage from age. The age rule is in place to keep girls from being abused and abusing their bodies too early.

It isn’t like they took steroids to make themselves physically ‘more than human’. These girls won world championships against the best in the world. No matter what their age was. The rule they broke isn’t ‘cheating’. The rule is not for competitive advantage. The rule is for the protection of the competitors.

All this bleating about ‘they cheated they should forfeit’ is a bunch of sour grapes. Might she have been born on 1/1 and so it isn’t forgery. They have Yao Ming, so surely they have tiny girls.

Again, the point is these girls were the best in the world without anything but being human. That isn’t cheating. That is excelling. I guarantee you that no other country would have been able to field 13 year olds that were that good regardless of the rule.