According to a Jeré Longman and Juliet Macur story in The New York Times, two budding gymnasts on the host Olympic team might be underage — not that it can be proven when the country providing the passports for the athletes has a government as totalitarian as the People's Republic of China.
Younger gymnasts — He Kexin and Jiang Yuyuan are both suspected of being 14 — are said to have an advantage in lightness, flexibility and, possibly, fearlessness.
Bela Karolyi, the coach of the U.S. team, notes that age is an easy thing to alter in an authoritarian country, he said, because the government has such strict control of official paperwork.
Karolyi, the story continues, remembered one North Korean gymnast — Kim Gwang Suk — who in the 1991 world championships stood 4-foot-4, weighed 62 pounds, still had what appeared to be baby teeth, and claimed to be 16.
At one point, the North Korean Gymnastics Federation listed her at 15 for three straight years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/sports/olympics/27gymnasts.html?ref=olympics&pagewanted=print
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