Archive for August, 2008

This story is taken from FoxNews:

A determined U.S. computer expert has delved into cached pages on the Internet to unearth Chinese official documents showing a gymnast who took gold in the uneven bars competition, edging the U.S.’s Nastia Liukin, may indeed be underage.

Controversy over whether He Kexin is under the minimum age of 16 has surrounded her participation in the Beijing Olympics. The latest challenge over the age of the tiny Olympian comes from the discovery through a cyberspace maze of Chinese official documents listing her date of birth.

She may not look as if she has reached the minimum competing age of 16, but China said her passport, issued in February, gives her birthday as Jan. 1, 1992. The International Olympic Committee said proof from her passport is good enough.

The latest unofficial investigation was carried out by computer security expert for the Intrepidus Group, whose site, Stryde Hax, revealed a detailed forensic search for He’s age.

First he simply tried Google, only to find that an official listing by the Chinese sports administration that had given her age could no longer be accessed. Then he tried the Google cache, only to find that He’s name had been removed.

Finally, he tried the cache of Chinese search engine Baidu. There, he found that Baidu lists two spreadsheets in He’s name, both giving her date of birth as January 1, 1994 — making her 14 years and 220 days old and too young to compete at the Beijing games.

The lists were compiled by the General Administration of Sport of China.

Even before anyone arrived in Beijing, American media investigations accused China of fielding three athletes below the 16-year-old minimum age threshold. Bela Karolyi, the former U.S. head coach, then reheated the issue by claiming that China “are using half-people” and that their flouting of the regulations was so obvious that “these people think we are stupid.”

Liukin, who finished second to He in the uneven bars final would be elevated to the gold medal position should He be disqualified. Britain’s Beth Twiddle, who finished in fourth place, would be elevated to the bronze.

“My real age is 16,” He said when asked by journalists about the debate. “I don’t care what other people say. I want other people to know that 16 is my real age.” When asked how she spent her 15th birthday, she paused and then said: “I was with my team. It was an ordinary day.”

Just nine months before the Olympics, the Chinese government’s Xinhua news agency gave He’s age as 13. Officials have since dismissed that report, saying Xinhua had never been given her age and made a mistake.

“Much of the coverage regarding Kexin’s age has only mentioned ‘allegations’ of fraud, and the IOC has ignored the matter completely,” said Stryde, who was later named by Information Week as Mike Walker. “I believe that these primary documents, issued by the Chinese state … rise to a level of evidence higher than ‘allegation.’”

It could certainly make a difference to Britain’s Tweddle, who at 23 and relatively old for a gymnast may not be able to compete in the 2012 Olympic games in London.

A Texas-sized homecoming celebration is being planned for Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin.

Liukin will be feted at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Thursday upon her return from Beijing.

A statement from the Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and the WOGA Gymnastics Academy said Liukin and her family are scheduled to arrive Thursday on a United Airlines flight at 4:13 p.m.

The celebration will be held at Terminal B, Gate 35.

The city of Parker had planned a parade on Saturday to honor the gymnast, but the parade has been postponed. Parade organizers tell NBC 5 they are concerned about issued caused by recent rain,

Parade organizers say they do plan to announce a new date for the parade.

For the first few minutes, Dallas girl Nastia Liukin didn’t even know the score, unable to see anything beyond the “2″ in front of her name.

When she finally did look, she figured she had to be seeing double.

The Olympic all-around champion finished with the same score as China’s He Kexin in Monday night’s uneven bars final, but He got the gold medal and Liukin went home with a silver thanks to gymnastics’ convoluted tie-break system that sent everyone scrambling for the rulebook. Reading hieroglyphics might be easier than explaining why He won.

He’s teammate, Yang Yilin, won the bronze.

He is one of the girls that is in the center of the controversy over whether the Chinese gymnasts are even of age to compete in these games. They are several inches shorter and up to 30 pounds lighter than the girls on all the other teams.

Gymnastics used to give out duplicate medals at the Olympics. In a bit of irony, Liukin’s father, Valeri, got one of his gold medals at the 1988 Olympics after tying teammate Vladimir Artemov on high bar. But the International Olympic Committee told the FIG to stop sharing medals after the Atlanta Games, and a tie-break system was implemented in 1997.

It’s a complicated formula that is based on deductions from the execution mark and involves more math than the SAT. Even Liukin wasn’t quite sure how the tie was broken — and that was after someone explained it to her.

The short answer is that He Kexin had .033 less in deductions when you apply the second tie-break formula.

For the long answer, grab a pencil and some scratch paper.

He and Liukin both finished with 16.725. They had identical 7.7 start values (the measure of a routine’s difficulty) and they each had a 9.025 for execution after the highest and lowest of the six judges’ marks were tossed out.

The execution mark is based on the perfect 10 scale, and the first tie-break takes the average of the four deductions that counted. He and Liukin were still tied after that.

For the second tie-break, the three lowest deductions that counted are averaged. When that was done, He had .933 in deductions and Liukin had .966.

Got that?

Not that Liukin will raise a fuss about it.

Besides, Liukin has the medal that REALLY matters….the all-around gold.

And with four medals, she’s pulled even with her father in the race for family bragging rights. Valeri Liukin won four medals in 1988, two gold and two silver.

Today Gov. Rick Perry ordered a new “Blue Alert” system to help find and arrest suspects when a law enforcement officer is killed or seriously injured in the line of duty.

Similar to Amber Alerts for cases of child abduction and Silver Alerts used for missing senior citizens, Blue Alerts will use Texas Department of Transportation highway message signs to display information such as a suspects vehicle description or license plate number.

The Blue Alert system will also coordinate with the Department of Public Safety and Perry’s Division of Emergency Management to get the information to television and radio stations for broadcast.

The program “will be a powerful tool that leverages the eyes and ears of many toward the apprehension of criminals who threaten our protectors,” Perry said.

The program would use several criteria to determine if a Blue Alert is warranted:

The soon to be Dallas residents, Jonas Brothers, had a busy day in Washington D.C. today.

They stopped by the White House to sign a wall and chat about diabetes (which one of them has) and got to meet Dick Cheney’s granddaughters.

They also stopped by Madame Tussaud’s to check out their wax likenesses.

Truth is stranger than fiction. Dallas boy Owen Wilson is supposedly hooking back up with Kate Hudson…again. For the third time.

The first break up left Owen slicing his wrists. The second breakup had her running after his good friend Lance Armstrong. As soon as Lance kicked her to the curb for being too needy, she started redialing Owen.

After way too many days of 100+ degree temps and blistering sun, we have cooler temps (80’s) and RAIN! It should be this way through Wednesday.