How not to investigate a scandal.

The IOC is doing a good job of not doing a good job. By this I mean that they are doing exactly what shouldn't be done in the case of the allegedly underaged Chinese gymnasts. The IOC is asking the very body accused of lying, to tell more lies.

I will explain. As far as has publicly been made known, the IOC's "investigation" into the girl's ages consisted of China being asked to produce more documents to "prove" their age. I use the word "produce" deliberately, for China has been given sufficient time to produce them, so as actually to produce them, (that is fabricate them), if necessary.

What many parties all over the world have basically said China seems to have done is lie to the world about the ages of its gymnasts. For the passports to be lies, it means that the Chinese government itself is the lying party - or its representatives. Yet, it is the Chinese government that the IOC has asked to produce further documents to prove the issue. This just doesn't make sense. If the passports are fake - as many different parties believe - then ALL documents produced by the Chinese will have been faked.

For those who haven't been following this matter, the doubt initially arose because of publicly available documents on Chinese government linked websites stating the ages of the girls as being as young as 13, rather recently. So, official Chinese sources are the source of the doubt. It is interesting that these public sources are fast disappearing and exist, now, only in web caches.

What the IOC needs to do is source its own evidence. Do not ask the Chinese government for anything because if the doubts about the Chinese gymnasts' age turn out to be true, it will have been the Chinese government itself that had lied about it, through falsifying documents. Therefore, asking them for further documents, in this instance, will just result in further falsification. The answer to this matter is not to be found in official documents - but in unofficial records: the minds of others, for instance.

There must be hundreds of people in these girls' hometowns who know their true ages. Their fellow schoolchildren and teachers will know. Their neighbours will know. Anyone who has grown up with them will know. Many, many people will know the truth. Simply sending someone to enquire might produce interesting results. Then there will be stories in newspapers in the early days, before anyone had thought to lie about their ages. There will be the records of early competitions. There will, in fact, be an untold variety of physical and other evidences of their true age. All it would take is for the IOC to actually go looking. The IOC appears either to be run stupidly - or in collusion with those they are defending. Only an unintelligent, or a dishonest person, could fail to doubt the ages of the Chinese gymnasts after so much evidence of their underage status has been aired.

To my eyes, it is not, now, the Chinese who are under trial. It is the IOC itself. The manner in which it acts, or does not act, will determine its standing, henceforth, in the eyes of many around the world. By not acting with wisdom, the IOC threatens to damage the Olympic movement itself. Well done, IOC. Well done.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)