Chinese Skaters' Age In Question

^^^^I know. But just didn't find that practical.

Rules are rules and should be fairly enforced. General condemnation is neither fair nor practical. Particular actions should receive particular punishments by the book. No more, no less. Rule infraction is definitely not an opportunity and pretext to express one's predisposed perception of an entire group of people, be they athletes or a population.

SkateFiguring said:

Whoa. So an international organization and regulatory body should have different treatments of different nations based on your perception and memo about how that nation operates? And that would be the correct agenda?

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The collective body of your posts on this issue show you are an apologist for the Chinese, but let me spell it clearly for you anyway: The agenda of the ISU should be to enforce the rules it sets, equally across all Federations. Not to give the Chinese Federation special privileges. My EXTENSIVE experience--not "perception" but hard facts and actions--in dealing with any sort of Chinese organization governmental or private is that they can be expected to use any and all means to achieve their ends, within or without "the rules" should it suit them. It is up to the the opposite party (parties) to stick up for their own interests which may diverge from the Chinese. This view is not unique to me, but common to well....just about anybody living and doing business of any kind here.

If it is true that they are caught cheating, I think the entire team should be banned for a season or two. If they're not, they'll just keep doing it and making a mockery of the sport. It sucks for the individual athletes but honestly.....tough cookies. It's not too strict. It is what it is. It is the same punishment handed by the FIG to North Korea.

I would think the same for any country who was caught cheating.

And, last I saw, the stands at CoC and the GPF were pretty empty, so it doesn't look like the popularity of the sport in China is all that high.

ETA: Oh, and I wish it were an independent team investigating it, rather than the investigated party.

bigsisjiejie said:

The collective body of your posts on this issue show you are an apologist for the Chinese, but let me spell it clearly for you anyway: The agenda of the ISU should be to enforce the rules it sets, equally across all Federations. Not to give the Chinese Federation special privileges. My EXTENSIVE experience--not "perception" but hard facts and actions--in dealing with any sort of Chinese organization governmental or private is that they can be expected to use any and all means to achieve their ends, within or without "the rules" should it suit them. It is up to the the opposite party (parties) to stick up for their own interests which may diverge from the Chinese. This view is not unique to me, but common to well....just about anybody living and doing business of any kind here.

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In conducting internaitonal business as well as conselling business people in international dealings, I commonly come across attitude such as yours, about all nationalities, not just Chinese. So many people from the N American culture get frustrated and it's always the other people's faults - ignorance, bad attitude and practices, and so on and so forth, often summerized as "you know, they're Chinese, or Iranian, or Russians............"

You should hear what the other parties have to say.

I've never known of confrontation being a successful business tactics, even if it works occasionally. Real success, no.

As I said upthread:

Rules are rules and should be fairly enforced. General condemnation is neither fair nor practical. Particular actions should receive particular punishments by the book. No more, no less. Rule infraction is definitely not an opportunity and pretext to express one's predisposed perception of an entire group of people, be they athletes or a population.

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My post on the Lunar Calendar was partly prompted by the seeming interest in Chinese culture in the MK at State Dinner thread. I could go on with my various other interests and better than average knowledge in a couple of fields, but they are irrelevent. As for being an apologist, if you do read all my posts, you would have read me sticking up for skaters of various nationalities whenever I feel they are unfairly and too harshly criticized, regardless of my personal fandom. Defender, yes, apologist, NO. It seems to me your judgement of me an individual is as quick and narrowly derived as that of a whole population.

No surprise here. The Chinese have been pulling this **** for years with their gymnastics teams. And lets not forget the doping scandals with the Chinese womens swimming teams in the 90's. Communist countries seem to like to cheat.

I should state that I believe the allegations, and am operating on the principle that they are in fact true and not a mass error.

SkateFiguring said:

^^^^I know. But just didn't find that practical.

Rules are rules and should be fairly enforced. General condemnation is neither fair nor practical. Particular actions should receive particular punishments by the book. No more, no less. Rule infraction is definitely not an opportunity and pretext to express one's predisposed perception of an entire group of people, be they athletes or a population.

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To be clear, I recognize my "suspend the whole federation for two years" isn't practical. Imposing no consequences (my second suggestion) is.

We're dealing with allegations of systemic cheating, to be frank. This isn't a lunar calendar thing. There are allegations stating that ages are being revised upwards AND downwards (see the Zhangs). As demonstrated in this thread, the cheating of one nation affects the position of many and does so for far more than a single competition. Because it's systemic, any minor wrist-slapping will do absolutely nothing to stop the cheating. Suspending the federation would certainly be a chilling development for the sport in China, but (A) I don't believe that the sport will suffer in Japan/S. Korea because of this (where the sport is still growing) and (b) It would serve to act as a strong warning to any federation.

If we're genuinely concerned about figure skating as a sport, it also behooves us to mention that while the ISU might not be able to handle losing China, the IOC certainly can. Do we really want to limp towards Sochi with this albatross affecting the athletes? How about the sports image in general? Maybe people who remember Tara Lipinski won't think it's a big deal (the upside).

Notice how often the girl's age increases while her partner's decreases. How can anyone seriously say this is a misunderstanding or random error? These mistakes are clearly deliberate:

Zhang Dan (+2 years) , Zhang Hao (-2 years)
Sui Wenjing (+2 years) , Han Cong (-3 years)
Yu Xiaoyu (+2 years) , Jin Yang (-5 years)
Cheng Duo (no change), Gao Yu (-4 years)

How about this proposal:

- Ban the skaters found to have competed using false age for all ISU sanctioned competitions for 4 years and revoked all medals they have won in the past. If any medals were revoked, the next skater/team should be given the appropriate placements retroactively. Any prizes and monies received should be returned in the form of fines.

- For each discipline where a skating federation has been shown to use false information / age, the said federation will receive -1 slot for ISU Championships in the next two years for each proven case of infraction. This means if X country has one slot for Ladies, 1 -1 = 0, no slot for Ladies for the next two years. But if X country has three slots for a given discipline, 3 -1 = 2 slots. If there are multiple infractions in a given discipline, it means the problem is prevalent, it makes sense that the entire discipline needs to be cleaned up before they can return to World level competitions and it makes sense the entire discipline is banned for a period of time

As for changing GP event, sponsor and etc., that's a non-starter. It will only foster animosity and create havoc. No country should benefit from the misconducts of another, so I think punishment should remain at a skater and federation level and one of the sanctions ISU has its disposal and would be willing to impose is to forbid certain countries from sending skaters at ISU Championships. That's their ultimate stick against non-complying national federations.

This controversy is getting pretty serious. Even Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC, has been notified on this particular matter. He said his staff is looking into this. Age requirement is nothing new in Olympic sports, there should be strict yet reasonable deterrents built in place to deter from such infractions.

ISU should and can only apply whatever are in their rules book. Governing body can't go around changing existing rules to suit a particular event, or create new punishments according who has violate the rules. Existing rules rule.

I didn't believe in overhauling the COP scoring because of Patrick Chan, or changing the US World Team selection critieria because of Jeremy Abbott and/or Adam Rippon. Law making by overreaction is a distrust of the existing laws and judicial process before its application, and always brings unintended consequences.

Rewriting rules or revamping a whole system is appropriate after proven failure of existing system, not at the time of allegations of infringements.

I would agree with that. But the case of Sui/Han is of great interest.

Will they just disappear and not be sent to Worlds & 4CCs, given that any medals/scores they got might be invalidated?

SkateFiguring said:

ISU should and can only apply whatever are in their rules book. Governing body can't go around changing existing rules to suit a particular event, or create new punishments according who has violate the rules. Existing rules rule.

I didn't believe in overhauling the COP scoring because of Patrick Chan, or changing the US World Team selection critieria because of Jeremy Abbott and/or Adam Rippon. Law making by overreaction is a distrust of the existing laws and judicial process before its application, and always brings unintended consequences.

Rewriting rules or revamping a whole system is appropriate after proven failure of existing system, not at the time of allegations of infringements.

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You'd be comofort to know the rules as it exsit today give the ISU a lot of flexibility in what sanctions they can impose. Though, the sanctions are centered on banning people / federation. For example, the punishment received by Plushenko last year. When Joannie Rochette skated at a show days before the 2010 Worlds yet said she was not going to Torino Worlds, Skate Canada was concerned that ISU would strip the eligibility of all Canadian World Team entries. My thoughts are a slightly more structured proposal and want to see what you guys think if the bannings I proposed seems reasonable or not. If the ISU ends up imposing sanctions in the form of banning people, which may not include only skaters, just ask Didier Gailhaguet of France, believed to be a mastermind behind the 2002 Salt Lake City controversy - it would have been entirely within their rights to do so. With respect to specific forms or formula, I don't know, I am just guessing here. But I think they will end up banning people, that's what they will do and I also believe if the Chinese Skating federation officials are involved, the team as a whole will receive sanctions as well and there wouldn't be any need to reinvent any wheels at all. My view is though disciplines not involved in the controversy shouldn't be affected, i.e. leaving the Men and Ice Dance alone.

dorispulaski said:

I would agree with that. But the case of Sui/Han is of great interest.

Will they just disappear and not be sent to Worlds & 4CCs, given that any medals/scores they got might be invalidated?

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They are not at 4CC, curiously enough. Don't know about Worlds however. Judging from the press release, it's been treated like a very serious competition by the Chinese. Pang/Tong are there and were getting a lot of coverage in the ISU local website, including the announcement of a mega on-ice wedding ceremony a la Shen/Zhao.

I thought that, according to the older age listed for Sui, she would be old enough for the Grand Prix (14 as of July 1) but not for ISU championships (15 as of July 1), so they wouldn't have been listed for 4Cs or Worlds this year even under that birthdate.

Well, there are the letters of the laws and then there are the spirits of the laws, which transcend the former. I suppose the ISU has guidelines where there are no hard and fast rules, and such guideline should represent the spirits of the unspecified laws. Any decision then will inevitably reflect the current feelings, politics, and pragmatic considerations.

Post Olympic year is actually the optimal time to investigate and revise as necessary.

SkateFiguring said:

Well, there are the letters of the laws and then there are the spirits of the laws, which transcend the former.

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In this case, I would think that the spirit of the law is, don't lie and cheat.

No law book can be so thick as to contain every possible lie that a liar can lie and every possible cheat that a cheater can cheat, and to prescribe specific penalties.

If these allegations are true, then the Chinese Figure Skating Federation are liars and cheaters. What they did wrong was, they lied and they cheated. They should be kicked out of the ISU, and allowed to petition for reinstatement only after presenting evidence they have cleaned house. (JMO.)

SkateFiguring, do you disagree with the Zayak rule? To me, changing something as a result of seeing flaws that weren't seriously considered when on paper isn't inherently wrong.

doris, their previously stated ages meant that Sui/Han weren't going to go to senior worlds regardless. However, I am VERY curious about what happens at World juniors now. They're on the entry list, but I'd assume this controversy pretty much carpet bombs their chance of winning.

ImaginaryPogue said:

SkateFiguring, do you disagree with the Zayak rule? To me, changing something as a result of seeing flaws that weren't seriously considered when on paper isn't inherently wrong.

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I am not against revision and change of rules and regulations for various purposes, e.g as incentive or discentive for certain actions. So-called Zayak rule is about skating program content . Nonethless, using it as an example, Zayak herself was not and should not be penalized because she didn't violate any rule. Zayak rule was not and should not be created at the time she was competing with repeated jumps to penalize her, nor should it be retroactively applied to her. People have to have rules and guidelines to go by so such rules and guidelines have to be dependable. That's what I mean by existing rules rule. Because of Zayak, repeated jumps were decided to be undesirable and new rules concerning repeated jumps were deviced and passed. Anybody violating these rules once they are in force have been and should be penalized accordingly.

I have observed too many actual laws and policies created hastily as a result of knee jerk reactions or arbitary deadlines and they are usually regrettable, with unintended consequeces which need additional laws to correct and adjust. People also often desire and demand rule changes to suit their own beliefs, perceptions, prejudices and preferences. The demands are often emotional and contradictory but authority in charge should retain a cool head and act rationally and appropriately, according to existing rules they are entrusted to follow and enforce. Often they are sufficient and effective when applied. If not, then changes should be made carefully for future cases.

I hate overrugulations which usually means poorly thought out and ineffective rules requiring more and more subsequent rules to cope with all the unforeseen consequences. I will give an example of my favorite law: Many factories are built near rivers to take in the water for manufacturing needs. The effluence is then pumped back out into the river. Governments set up anti-polution laws, send inspectors, and take legal actions which take a long time to process while the water is being poluted and tax payers' money is spent endlessly. In Switzerland, there is a simple stipulation that all water outputs by such plants have to be upstream of where they draw in the water. C'est tout.

The example may be OT but my point is demanding the creation of new penalties for rule infractions may be reactionary and intuitive but hardly necessary. First, facts should be established by investigation, then currently stipulated penalties can be applied. Any rule adjustment should happen after an unsatisfactory outcome, not before. In any case, existing rules rule.

SkateFiguring said:

China is right now an extremely important nation for the future of the sport of figure skating. Skimming through some Chinese skating forums, I can see the avid and growing interest and knowledge. It's also striking how little nationalism plays in their intense fandom as they are crazy about skaters worldwide, including lower tiered ones. The non-Chinese skaters have expressed how much they appreciate the supportive and enthusiastic Chinese (and other Asian) fans when they perform there. It is a big market as well as a big talent pool.

Figure skating can't afford to dampen China's involvement when its popularity is in decline in some Wetern nations previously of keen interest and deep pockets.

I say ISU should just apply whatever penalties they have in place. That would be fair and discouraging for all rule violations. The Chinese federation will be extra cautious if a few medals were revoked.

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So because China is an important nation "future wise for the sport" we should just give them a slap in the wrist. I'm sorry but no. I have no problem with the Chinese people, I have a lot of respect for their culture and history. But its clear that in Olympic sports the Chinese government has no respect for the age rules, and this frankly needs to stop NOW.

China being allowed to compete younger athletes, when other nations are forced to keep their talented youngsters behind, doesn't nothing for the popularity of the sport worldwide. What does it say the Japanese and Koreans, when they had to leave two girls Asada and Kim out of the Olympics because they were 3 months to old, but the Chinese get to compete their little ones. Do you really think if China gets a slap in the wrist, this is going to do wonders for the popularity in the sport in Korea and Japan, and those are the places the sport is truly growing.

How fair is it that Adelina Sotnikova who would do well on the Senior circuit right now has to stay behind, and heck even has to stay behind next year because she's one day to young, gets to watch Sui and Han do their thing.

What about in gymnastics Aliya Mustafina and Rebecca Bross, two girls who if the Russians and the Americans could, would have probably put on their 2008 Olympic teams, but who instead stayed home and got to watch He Kexin compete (Kexin is allegedly born the same year as Aliya) Mustafina would have won Worlds AA easily last year. Then there's Viktoria Komova probably the best freaking gymnast to come around in over a decade, not earning the medals she could have won.

Its not right or fair, and I'm sick of it. IF the Chinese want to play sports with the rest of the world, they need to follow the rules. If they don't like the age rules, they should work to get them changed for everyone.

I'm sorry but what the Chinese are doing is very wrong, and its very fair to point out their Sports federation, because they are doing it systematically.

In fairness Romania/USSR etc in gymnastics broke age rules too, but both countries especially Russia clearly follow the rules now. Why can't China?

The sport may grow more popular in China, if they Chinese are allowed to compete by different rules, but its not going to grow more popular anywhere else.

^^^^^I don't know how you got whatever you're reacting to so much. That post was in response to suggestion of suspending China for two years. I'm for applying whatever current rules are instead of devising specific punishment without considering the real effect. I don't believe a whole country or even a whole discipline has been banned from competitions because of a cheater such as Ben Johnson or a repeated drug user like Marion Jones. Establish the facts and the culprilts and deal with them according to existing rules, but not those not involved. Is that not a reasonable position?