Olympic Truth

China cheated again – Male athlete in Women’s Badminton Finals"
- August 17, 2008 3:35 pm EDT

Jane Lee is a 9year old Korean American girl, living in Pasadena California. Jane’s favorite sport is badminton, and she is a fan of Korean national team players, Kyungwon Lee and Hyojung Lee. Naturally, when South Korean played in the Women’s Doubles Final against Du Jing and Yu Yang from China on August 15, Jane turned on the TV to watch the game.

Jane thought she picked the wrong channel, when she saw two male athletes, in Chinese team uniforms, warming up in the court. She checked the TV schedule again, surely, she had the correct Channel. Then the camera turned to the other side of the court, there were her favorites, Kyungwon and Hyojing, warming up. Jane was confused. She asked his dad, Hyansun Lee, who just came into the family room.

Watching the mystery on the screen himself, Hyansun’s thoughts span fast:”Could it be the Olympics this year added a Men vs. Women game? Given all the Rights activities going on around the world, it’s not totally impossible. But there hasn’t been any news report about it.” Just then, the game commentator announced: “The Chinese ladies will serve first…” That stopped Hyansun’s thought spin, but made his head shake. But he quickly settled down, told Jane that the Chinese players were ladies, and then went to his office with an unconvinced heart.

Hyansun turned on his computer, hoping to find out the real gender of the Chinese players. Google search on the name “Yu Yang” returned 55,600 items, not a surprise given the population of China. But Hyansun was not deterred. After hours of filtering, the glaring result was in front of his eyes – ignoring the uncertain ones, 220 are male, 24 are female – Meant there is a 90% possibility that “Yu Yang” is a man.

This alone was certainly not convincing enough, so Hyansun went on to check the game statistics. As a badminton player himself, he knew there is a sharp difference of aggressiveness between male and female players (as in anything else). 55% ~ 75% of the plays by male badminton player are attacks in nature, while the same percentage range for female is defensive or neutral relay. As for Yu Wang? 62% plays were killing attempts, which put her, or rather him, squarely in the male category.

Although these results pointed to the right direction, Hyansun knew that they were inconclusive. So he emailed a help request to Don Wotjz, the famous CNM reporter in Beijing who broke the Robot Diver story. Upon receiving the email, Don carefully reviewed the video and game statistics himself. Quickly realizing this could be something big again, he went to work right away. Don contacted several people in the Chinese Athletics Organization. Everyone responded insisted that these players are female. But Don became more suspicious, because no one offered any proof, except their passports.

There was more in Don's arsenal. He had access to official records of the sport events in China. Among all the badminton games in the past three years, there is only one record showing Yu Wang won a Man’s Single champion in the Badminton Tournament in Shanghai China. No female Yu Wang winner documented at all.

Don submitted a investigation request to IOC, which was promptly denied, citing “insufficient evidence”. Don was determined not to let this serious misdeed get ignored. He informed several media that a protest would be staged. Asked in which of the three parks assigned by Beijing government for public protests, Don said, “None. We will put up signs on some tall profile buildings… You don’t get attention by obeying the law.” Which everyone knows it’s true. He promised to inform us the location in the last minute, but didn’t offer clues on how to break through security and safety lines.

Questioned about the possibility of being arrested, Don said: “Someone has to stand out and sacrifice. That’s what hero is made of… We need more protests. Ten days into the Olympic Games, the total number of protesters arrested in Beijing is fewer than the protesters arrested in DisneyLand California yesterday (32). We need to catch up.”

As for Hyanson in Pasadena, he is still waiting for the truth. He thinks his daughter deserves the truth. Indeed, 9yr old Jane deserves the truth, the kids in the world deserve the truth, the whole world deserves the truth.

- Scott Swanson, CNM (Center of News Markers)
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How old is the middle one? Take a guess? I say 13?