Lying Scores Another Perfect 10

And the beat of the lying drum goes on. The AP reports that they've found evidence that at least one member of the Chinese gymnastics team isn't yet 16 years old.

16 is the age of eligibility for a gymnast to compete in the Olympic games. But as with all things Olympic, we are asked to avert our eyes at anything that might taint our view of this sham of international harmony.

Says the AP:

In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, http://www.hb.xinhuanet.com.

The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.

Sent backstage
So that makes at least three lies to come out of the Beijing Olympics so far. First was the phony fireworks during the Opening Ceremonies. Then there was the poor child that was pushed backstage in favour of a pretty face, at the request of a Chinese Politburo member. The politician thought the little girl was bucktoothed, and told the event organizers to bring out the hook. The bucktoothed child sang the Olympic anthem, all right, but the pretty face lip-synched the tune. And now you have a gymnast who has aged three years in nine months.

A miracle? No, just another expected car crash in this insipid display of media hypocrisy colliding with a totalitarian regime.

You've gotta hand it to the Chinese for chutzpah. When they submitted He's passport to the corrupt IOC, they listed her birthdate as January 1, 1992. As is done in horse racing, they made sure her birthdate fell on the first day of the year, to ensure the IOC could do some easy math and give her a free ride. Which, of course, they dutifully did, though past records had He's age listed as January 1, 1994.

Lying about a gymnast's age is nothing new to China. At the 2000 games in Sydney, the Chinese entered a 14-year-old into the mix. She won a bronze medal, and later admitted that she and her coaches lied about her age. The fact that the IOC knew this, and did not investigate He's age for this year's games in Beijing, only proves how complicit they are in the host country's lies. The IOC's mantra is, "Shhh. Don't ruin it. The Olympics are perfect, and always will be."

Nothing will be allowed to disturb this Chinese Moment. No Chinese athlete will be found guilty of doping, and no Chinese gymnast will be stripped of a medal for any infraction. This is the Olympics, get it? Lie after lie will rain down upon you, and you will do your duty: like it, and ignore it. And by the way, how are you enjoying all of that 'mist' you're seeing in China right now? The only gold medal awarded in this Olympic farce should go to the longest lasting fog bank in history.

We're all a great big happy family. While a Chinese political prisoner sits in jail for surfing the internet, the little Chinese girl receives a gold medal for doing handstands on a piece of playground equipment. While the Russian athlete hugs the Georgian athlete for swimming in a pool, the Russian president invades the Georgian countryside and bombs people to death. But hey, don't rock the boat. Michael Phelps might win another medal, wouldn't that be fantastic?

The only good thing to come out of these Olympic Games will be the closing ceremonies.

That's The Spirit

The Olympics bore me to tears. The only event I can even come close to caring about is the hundred metre dash, but they don't show the thing until the second last night of the Olympics (proving that millions of other people only care about the hundred metre dash, too). So I have a choice: I can sit through two weeks of boring sports people you only see every 4 years, or I can skip the whole thing altogether.

My disinterest in the Olympics isn't about cynicism, though I have plenty of that. Do I believe that the Olympic Games are a fraud, with doped up athletes and a front office run by crooks? Absolutely. Do I believe that the Olympic "spirit" is a laugh when the Games can be sent to China, a country whose citizens are not allowed to get on a plane and go anywhere they choose? Sure.

But really, the reason I don't like the Olympics is that it's boring. It's right up there with the vegetarian chick at the end of the table, the one that won't shut up about how right she is. There may be some people that enjoy watching an athlete's "my dog died" stories before being treated to a 3-hour session of pole vault. I'm just not one of them.

Someone on the Olympics committee must have recognized this, because they gave us women's beach volleyball. Finally, an event for the regular guy. I enjoy watching talented people work hard to realize their dreams of glory. I especially like that they can only realize their dreams in the skimpiest bikinis they can get their hands on.

I was flipping through the papers this morning and saw that the US Olympic cycling team showed up in Beijing wearing masks to protect themselves from air pollution. The media was appalled by their lack of sensitivity.

I laughed. First at the cyclists. Those masks aren't going to do squat. Then I laughed at the media, who haven't a clue. When I was in China, I saw all kinds of local people wearing masks...they're just not allowed to wear them during the Games.

Beautiful China
The pollution in China is unbelievable. I once took a bus ride from Tianjian to the Great Wall, four hours away. There was a stiff wind blowing the whole time, but the smog didn't budge an inch. I mean an inch. It just sat there like a big, fat blanket. The visibility was maybe two hundred yards in any direction, and it wasn't until we made the steep climb to the wall that it began to let up. Even at the Great Wall the pollution was so bad that I had to run all of my photos and videos through a color correction filter to get rid of it.

You've probably seen beautiful nighttime photos of Hong Kong and Shanghai. The reason they're beautiful is because of the pollution. The heavy smog makes the streetlights and neon sign glow like the gates of Heaven. During the day it's a different story. That's when the cities look like they're sitting in a nuclear winter, lifeless, ugly, and grey.

But they're a "developing country," bless them. No Kyoto for them.

The Olympics has always been a joke, and this year's installment merely ups the ante. Rich kids and spoiled brats will be running around in circles, jumping over sand pits, rolling around on floors, diving into pools, sailing expensive yachts, and bouncing up and down on trampolines. Meanwhile, down the road, there will be hundreds of political prisoners, waiting for the brats to get lost so the prisoners can return to their families. If the government lets them.

I don't want to ruin your fun Olympic experience. Watch it all you want. Just remember that the sooner these Games are over, the sooner some poor guy can stop eating gruel and maybe, just maybe, find some happiness at home.

Photos: Delaware Online & Sean Berry