to think we shouldnt allow countries that do this to compete?

[elizaregina]

www.chinasmack.com/2012/pictures/chinese-gymnastics-kids-training-with-tears-sweat-dreams.html

If young children are plucked out from thier families and put into a torturous regime day and night for years and years and years with the idea of achiveing greatness for china - should we allow them to compete at all?

Isnt this really allowing slaves to compete> They havant chosen this!!!

Isnt this like buying a puppy from a farm - arnt we encouraging more of the same?

The Olympics doesnt have a minimum age, but each sport governing body within sets it own age limits eg diving is 14 (think Tom Daly 4 years ago in Bejing) as is bobsled and handball is 17.

Useless fact of the day

Oddly, the USA Gymnastics federation, in 2000, stipulated no under 16's should compete. That seems to have been revoked with their 15yo's this time.

I don't think you should pick on just the Chinese for this - plenty of abuse of young gymnasts in previous Russian/USSR and Romanian squads as well (and probably other countries too).

Just to add to what LRD, its frowned upon in some cultures not to outwardly show emotional outbursts. Japan is one I know for sure, and I think that China is similar.

(A lot of people Japan have found it more difficult to cope with the after effects of the Tsunami as a result, as they have felt pressure not to express their feelings. It also works in the other direction for extreme joy though).

So I really wouldn't read too much in facial expressions as there are huge cultural differences at play here too.

I do not understand why countries with such appalling human rights records are allowed to compete.
Because the entire ethos of the Olympics is supposed to be non-political. Countries have withdrawn in the past because of political reasons, but the idea of the Olympics is supposed to be about bringing people together despite political differences and to promote inclusion rather than exclusion.

Of course we all know this isn't true, and the Games are riddled with politics, but in truth, I don't think its a good idea to try and encourage even more politics at the Games as it would completely destroy them. Things that are nice about the Olympics are things like the fact that athletes who come from countries at war with each other can come together and compete on friendly terms or that athletes from nations in turmoil have been allowed to compete under the Olympic flag if politics don't allow them to compete under their own flag.

You can do much to change things through a policy of inclusion, rather than exclusion as it effectively means people watching or competing are exposed to different cultures and politics that they otherwise would not be and wrongs can be challenged in this way.

Don't forget Germany tried to promote the idea of Aryan ideals at the 1936 Olympics but victories by Jesse Owens and Hungarian Jew, Ibolya Csák conflicted with that and showed a rather different truth.

Plenty of abuse in sport here too. I know of several sex offenders who were coaches of various sorts. The NSPCC has an entire department dealing with safeguarding in sport.

tethersphotofinish

The thing is, they clearly draw the line somewhere. it's not as if they have a no-ban policy.

I wonder what exactly a government needs to do to it's people to warrant being banned from the olympics, as it seems that the threshold for exclusion simply hasn't been met. It's mind-boggling.

It is mind boggling and forcing babies into sports schools and robbing them of thier childhoods seems enough to me to not allow them to compete.

They probably have stockholm syndrome because they have simply not known anything else except thier captors. The points of reference are always going to be swekered anyway in a communist country, let alone within a prison within a prison.

Re North Korea, I wonder what will happen to those poor athletes once they get back home. Most of them are from wealthier - ponyang anyway - but I wonder if they will be allowed back into society, having seen - flowers and heard music, and seen people laughing and making jokes. I am sure they will either be made to do struggle sessions for the rest of thier lives or even sent to the camps.

I am staggered by the amount of people on this thread - parents too I assume who think its OK to do what the chinese are doing for a gold medal for the country.

Personally I would never think a gold medal equals a lost childhood and being treated as a property of the state.

The articles say - teh children are un wittingly pumped with drugs, past winners bodies have been wrecked by the drugs, and training, they have not had an education and after they have passed thier sell by date they are not able to find employment, what they do earn is mostly seized by the state.

Put it another way - i am glad i was not born into that and I would not do that to my own daughter.

Or put it another way - maybe this is a good business proposition to send scouts round nurseries and pluck out kids to send to speical schools at 3 to train them up!

"I don't think its a good idea to try and encourage even more politics at the Games as it would completely destroy them"

persoanlly I value human life above that of the olympic games.

IF China are so desperate for gold medals, and the olmpic whoever said = " no competitors taken away from families age three and put into specialist schools will be allowed to compete", they would probably merely change the way they train althetes.

"Because the entire ethos of the Olympics is supposed to be non-political. Countries have withdrawn in the past because of political reasons, but the idea of the Olympics is supposed to be about bringing people together despite political differences and to promote inclusion rather than exclusion. "

Hmm, if SA had not previously been banned from the Olympics for nearly thirty years due to apartheid, I would concede your point, although I don't agree with it- the fact that they have excluded countries for political reasons begs the question as to why they are not currently doing so. It cannot be that banning countries for political reasons is something the the Olympics just doesn't 'do'- they can and they have.

eliza- I think you are focusing on a detail which may or may not be a symptom of a greater malaise. If China should be excluded from the Olympics, it has committed atrocities far greater than this which should be the reason for their exclusion. To ban China for this particular reason, but to continue to allow countries such as North Korea to take part would be absurd.

I would like to see a stand being taken which disallows countries who systematically murder their citizens from taking part. Because I'm pretty sure that imprisoning and murdering three generations of the family of an 'offender' is not in keeping with the spirit of the Olympics either.

About that chinese gymnast who was crying - now, personally I found that moving. I saw the British lass who slipped badly looking teary too. In both cases teammates and coaches were comforting them.

I think it's important to distinguish between the way a country is run and the human rights attitude it has - which may well be appalling - and the experiences of individuals we're seeing on TV. I'm not very comfortable with this idea of saying that, because China is guilty of horrific human rights violations, therefore the Chinese girl crying must be horribly mistreated, or that Chinese competitors don't comfort each other like what we nice Brits do. That's rubbish.

Yes, the Russians were comforting their team member who had a bit of a collapsed arm on the floor exercise as well - the coach was hugging her, and her other team mates too.