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X-Rays Could Be Huge Factor in Deciding Age of Chinese Gymnast
23-Aug-2008
Written by: E. Van Dril
China beat the United States for the gold in the team all-around at the Beijing Olympics.
Telling the age of a tree is rather easy.
You chop it down, and then count the rings.
The only problem is that when you chop it down, the tree dies.
And as is the case with the advancement of technology and the Chinese government's warming up to the female gender (unlike in previous centuries, when Chinese girls were slaughtered because they weren't born with a certain male-specific organ), the Chinese won't pull a "Kill Bill" and cut open their gymnast to prove her age.
Controversy has been brewing since the female Chinese gymnastics team took center stage at the Olympics games. Specifically, it doesn't appear that at least one of their gymnasts (He Kexin being the most talked about, but Yang Yilin and Jiang Yuyuan have also sent mothers of 16-year-olds into outrage in living rooms throughout the United States) is or will be the required 16-years-of-age by the end of the year.
The big medical procedure being thrust into the limelight is the X-ray. What doctors would do with this is examine the seemingly underdeveloped gymnasts as they would people with growth disorders, young homicide victims and illegal immigrants whose ages they don't know.
They would examine their body development through a series of X-rays, and measure their growth of teeth and compare them to girls in similar age groups.
"If there is nothing to be afraid of, let their kids be X-rayed," Dr. Peter Hampl said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "It's almost incriminating if they don't."
Yeah, stay tuned.
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