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Beijing.  Chinese officials vowed to impose tough new eligibility rules to prevent the type of “age cheat” scandal that saw a Chinese gymnast stripped of her Olympic medal.

Suspicions of age-faking have dogged the Chinese sport for years.

Earlier this year, Dong Fangxiao had to return her women’s gymnastics team bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Olympics after an International Olympic Committee probe found that she was 14 years old when she joined the competition — two years below the minimum age requirement.

Dong registered different ages at Sydney and the 2008 Beijing Games, where she served as a technical official.

Her five teammates — Yang Yun, Liu Xuan, Ling Jie, Huang Mandan, Kui Yuanyuan — also lost their medals.

Chinese sports officials said that tighter checks introduced after the scandal would eradicate the problem. Cai Zhenhua, head of China’s delegation for next month’s Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, said the country had adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward potential cheats.

Stringent documentation checks on China’s 70-strong squad have been carried out in addition to X-ray bone analysis on members of the team who are under 16 years old, Cai added.

“We’ve scrutinized every athlete’s age for the Youth Olympic Games to make sure there is no one going to Singapore with a fake age,” he told Thursday’s China Daily. “We have to be very clean and transparent for the benefit of the athletes and the spirit of fair play.”

The Youth Olympics in Singapore, set to begin on Aug. 14, will include potential senior Olympic talents aged 14 to 18.

 
Reuters