A few nights ago, while watching the women’s all-around gymnastics finals, Sara and I both remarked that none of the Chinese gymnasts looked old enough to be done losing their baby teeth. Around the time we came to that realization, the commentators announced the Olympic rules stating that the gymnasts had to turn 16 years of age within the Olympic year to be eligible to compete. These two things did not match up.

In the end, the US gymnastics team lost the gold to the Chinese and had to settle for silver.

Now, documents have apparently surfaced that prove that at least some of the Chinese gymnasts were under age. He Kexin has been reported as being only 14 and even 13 by different sources, including the Chinese media.

Now, on one hand, why should we care? It’s disturbing enough that these girls are taken from their family homes at ages as young as 3 years old and enrolled in training camps to mold them into Olympic gymnasts, seeing their families as little as once a year. In the face of something like that, breaking Olympic rules by letting a 14 year old compete is nothing at all.

On the other hand, cheating is cheating. We ostracize athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs to break the rules, why not go after a country that is forging international documents to break the rules? Rules are rules and they should be enforced evenly.

The real conundrum, though, is for the American gymnasts. If these allegations are true (and I’ll assume that they are, given China’s blustering about them being false. Methinks thou dost protest too much and all that.) then these teens were beaten by little girls. If I remember anything about being a teenager, and I’d like to hope that I do, NOTHING was more embarrassing than being beaten at anything by someone younger than you.

Is it more embarrassing to be beaten by a team that included a assumed 14 year old or to be beaten by a team with a known 14 year old, have that team be disqualified and be awarded their Gold Medals in forfeit?