According to the NY Times the IOC team has asked the international gymnastic group F.I.G. to investigate the ages of the controversial Chinese women's team. "According to online sports registration lists in China, half the team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan — would be under age." As many as six medals won by the 'women's' team hang in the balance. Also read NY Daily News and The Telegraph.......

For those of you still dwelling on the age of a certain Chinese gymnast, we've got good news for you: Someone is more obsessed about the controversy than you! A blogger has done some internet sleuthing (see here and here) that has some people convinced that He Kexin (何可欣) is all of 14 years old (Olympic rules state that gymnasts must be 16). All the cyber-digging might be in vain, however — we doubt the......

Andrew Lih reports on some websites newly accessible in Mainland China leading up to the Olympics. They include: BBC Chinese, Wikipedia Chinese, Radio Free Asia and Apple Daily HK newspaper. Lih is quick to point out that "there are plenty of sites still blocked in China, including Tor Project, Amnesty International, Wikia, The Pirate Bay, AboutUs.org, and LiveJournal." Lih's bet on when unblocked sites will be reblocked? "8 hours and 8 minutes after the Olympic......

A letter from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued on Wednesday warned the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) to keep politics separate from sports. The letter was issued after the IOC read the remarks of Zhang Qingli, Tibet’s Chinese Communist party secretary, at a torch relay in Lhasa. "Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it," Qingli said, adding: "We will certainly......