Gymnastics History

During the September 1998 National Championships, several emerging Chinese gymnasts made a strong impression. Among them was Xu Jing. But as the People’s Daily, China’s official state newspaper, noted at the time, Xu was too young to compete at the December Asian Games. And yet, just a few months later, she was in Bangkok, winning gold medals with the team and on floor.

So when was Xu Jing born? It’s not easy to say with precision. What follows is the documentary record—the paper trail that traces how her age has been reported over time.

After the Chinese women’s team finished sixth at the 2022 World Championships, the Chinese press searched for explanations. One recurring theme was a perceived lack of talent. In 2018, Chinese officials had lamented the absence of gymnasts born in 2001 and 2002. By 2022, the concern had shifted forward: now there was said to be a shortage of athletes born around 2005 and 2006.

China’s team final lineup consisted of Tang Qianjing, Zhang Jin, Ou Yushan, Luo Rui, and Wei Xiaoyuan. Three of them — Tang Qianjing, Zhang Jin, and Ou Yushan — were members of the Chinese women’s team at the Tokyo Olympics. Because women’s gymnastics turns over quickly, most gymnasts have a competitive window of only one or two Olympic cycles. As the Paris cycle began, most of the leading nations used this World Championships to carry out a major generational overhaul. China’s women’s team, however, found itself somewhat stretched for options: the squad is in the midst of a transition, its core preparation group still consists largely of athletes from the previous cycle, and gymnasts born in 2005 and 2006 have yet to emerge in sufficient numbers, leaving an apparent gap that has affected the team’s overall strength.

Archived here.

女团决赛中国队派出的队员为唐茜靖、章瑾、欧钰珊、罗蕊、韦筱圆，其中唐茜靖、章瑾、欧钰珊三人都是东京奥运会中国女团成员。由于女子体操更新换代较快，大部分小花只有一至两个奥运周期的“花期”，进入巴黎奥运周期，大部分强队都在本次世锦赛实现了“大换血”，但中国女团在人员调配上有些“捉襟见肘”，队伍正处在新老交替的过程中，重点备战队员还是上个周期的选手，2005至2006年出生的选手出现一定断档，整体实力受到影响。

Note: Similar langauge about an age gap was used in 2018.

In a country of more than a billion people, it is difficult to believe that China simply produced very few talented gymnasts born in 2005 and 2006. But there is another possibility: China did produce a substantial group of elite gymnasts born in 2005, yet many of them later appeared in official records with 2004 birth years instead.

In 2018, Chen Yile enjoyed a remarkable senior debut. She won team bronze at the Doha World Championships and captured three gold medals — team, all-around, and balance beam — at the Asian Games in Jakarta. Yet according to articles published by both the Chinese Olympic Committee and the General Administration of Sport of China, Chen Yile was still only fifteen years old in 2018 and therefore not old enough to compete as a senior under FIG rules.

The timeline presented in the articles is unambiguous. Both state that Chen Yile was fourteen during the 2017 National Games and fifteen during the 2018 Asian Games, clearly pointing to a 2003 birth year, even though she was officially registered with a 2002 birthdate.

At the end of 2018, Ye Zhennan, team leader of the national gymnastics squad, acknowledged that the women’s national team had entered a difficult period. One reason, he explained, was the lack of eligible athletes born in 2001 and 2002:

“This has been an extremely difficult year for the women’s team. Athletes born in 2001 and 2002 are almost entirely missing from the pipeline. The premature retirement of Wang Yan — the All-National Games double champion in vault and floor — combined with serious injuries to key athletes, including Mao Yi, Fan Yilin, and Li Qi, has left the team noticeably weakened. Through the coaching of head coach Qiao Liang and the experience gained at the Asian Games and World Championships, the athletes have undergone a remarkable transformation in both their training level and their mental outlook.”

“女队今年是非常困难的一年，2001、2002年龄段出生的队员几乎断档，全运会跳马、自由操双料冠军王妍的过早退役以及毛艺、范忆琳、黎琪等重点队员出现严重伤病，使队伍实力上有所欠缺。通过乔良主教练在训练水平上的弥补，和在亚运会、世锦赛的历练让队员在训练水平和精神面貌有了焕然一新的改变。”

Archived here.

In a country of more than a billion people, it is difficult to believe that China simply produced very few gymnasts born in 2001 and 2002. There are, however, several possible explanations. Perhaps the national team focused so heavily on preparing the 1999 and 2000 cohorts for the Rio Olympics that the next generation was neglected. Or perhaps some gymnasts born in 2001 and 2002 had their ages adjusted in order to make them eligible for the Rio Olympics.

Luo Huan’s case points to that possibility. Her reported birth year appears to shift from 2002 to 2000. But the significance of her age extends beyond a single discrepancy. It offers a window into a broader pattern: a system in which age alterations appear not as rare exceptions, but as something closer to routine practice — often taking place during early childhood, long before a gymnast ever reaches the international stage.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Chinese gymnasts again faced questions about their ages. Although the controversy received little attention in the United States — likely overshadowed by the emerging abuse scandal surrounding USA Gymnastics — it was widely discussed in China.

One exchange, in particular, stood out after the team final, where the Chinese team won bronze. “Many viewers watched the competition and were surprised by how young the Chinese team members look” (“很多观众看了比赛，他们对中国队员的年轻感到吃惊”), a foreign reporter remarked. “They seem very small, as if they might not quite be of eligible age” (“感觉看起来很小，似乎不是很够（参赛）年龄？”).

The question placed the gymnasts in an uncomfortable position. Any careless or ambiguous wording could easily have been amplified by foreign media and turned into another international controversy. But, according to Chinese media, the athletes responded calmly and confidently.

“We just look relatively young” (“我们只是看起来比较年轻”), team captain Shang Chunsong answered first.

“We do look young” (“我们就是看起来比较小”), Fan Yilin added, “but one of the American team members is actually younger than us” (“但是美国一名队员比我们还要小呀”).

Then Shang Chunsong concluded matter-of-factly: “Tan Jiaxin is from 1996; the rest of us are from 1999” (“谭佳薪是96年的，其余都是99年的”).

There was only one problem with that response: in the weeks leading up to Rio, Chinese state media had repeatedly described Wang Yan as belonging to the “post-2000s generation.”

In 2011, the Chinese women’s team finished third, but it faced a structural problem. According to Lu Shanzhen, the coach who “single-handedly built China’s women’s team to its 2008 glory,” the pool of age-eligible athletes was dangerously shallow. As a result, the team’s future hinged on just two young gymnasts: Yao Jinnan and Tan Sixin. Here’s what Lu Shanzhen said to the China Youth Daily during the 2011 World Championships:

“China’s women’s team currently has very few age-eligible young athletes available for London 2012 preparations; it simply cannot be compared to the American or Russian teams. We have only two young athletes we are developing as priority targets: one is Yao Jinnan, and the other is Tan Sixin. Tan Sixin’s underperformance tonight will certainly have an impact on our London preparations. Athletes who compete at the Olympics must have strong consistency.”

Ci Xin, China Youth Daily, October 12, 2011, p. 4

    “中国队目前可以用于备战2012年伦敦奥运会的适龄年轻选手非常少，完全不能同美国队和俄罗斯队相比，我们只有两名年轻队员为重点培养对象，一个是姚金男，一个就是谭思欣。谭思欣今晚的失常表现，对我们备战伦敦奥运会肯定会有影响，参加奥运会的队员必须具有良好的稳定性。”

On paper, this made sense: with an official February 8, 1995, birthdate, Yao Jinnan would have turned sixteen in 2011 and thus been age-eligible for London. But was she?

The answer to that question turns, unexpectedly, on the age of her twin sister, Yao Jianan, who had also trained as a gymnast, and whose recorded birthdate did not align with 1995.

In 2008, Cheng Fei was widely reported to be 20 years old. CCTV.com—the website of China’s state broadcaster—underscored that point in a retrospective on the 2008 season published on December 23, 2008:

As is widely known, gymnastics is a sport that demands enormous investment and carries high costs, yet produces relatively few elite athletes. For a female competitor, a gymnast makes her debut at around sixteen and has essentially passed the peak of her athletic career by twenty — the golden window is just four short years, and the athletes who manage to last through it are vanishingly rare. Cheng Fei, currently the oldest member of the Chinese women’s team, is exactly twenty; young talents such as Yang Yilin and He Kexin are around seventeen. If they can stay healthy and maintain their form, competing at the London Olympics is entirely within reach.

众所周知，体操是一项投入大、成本高，但成材率较低的项目。对于一个女子运动员来说，16岁初出茅庐，到20岁已经基本过了运动生涯的巅峰，黄金时期只有短短四年时间，能坚持下来的队员凤毛麟角。目前中国女队年龄最大的程菲正好20岁，杨伊琳、何可欣等小将都在17岁左右，如果能避免伤病保持状态，出战伦敦奥运会完全有可能。

Archived here.

Even the New York Times, which was at the forefront of Olympic age scrutiny in Beijing, did not challenge Cheng Fei’s stated age. In “A Life of Sacrifice for a Vault of Gold,” David Barboza wrote:

Today, all grown up at 20, Cheng is not simply promising. She is China’s top female gymnast and the country’s best hope of winning a gold medal in that sport at the Olympic Games in Beijing…

Yet the available paper trail suggests that Cheng Fei, like a number of Chinese gymnasts over the decades, may not have been born in the year listed in her FIG registration. Even CCTV.com—which said she was “exactly twenty” in 2008—had previously published an article that used a different birth year to calculate her age.

What follows is a closer look at the evidence indicating that Cheng Fei was likely not born in 1988.

Imagine being born on January 22, 1995. That would make you perfectly timed for senior competition in 2011 and 2012. But if your national team needed you in 2010, you would miss eligibility by just 22 days. Now imagine that your birthdate could be moved by exactly one month—to December 22, 1994—making you eligible for the 2010 season.

That appears to be what happened with Wu Liufang.