China Stripped of Olympic Bronze

China's 2000 Olympic team was stripped of its bronze medal after team member Dong Fangxiao was discovered to have been underage. Members of team USA will now receive a bronze medal 10 years later. This decision furthers the disaster that was the 2000 Olympic women's gymnastics competition.

I am more or less against age limits in sports. While I understand the concern of keeping young athletes healthy, there are already junior gymnasts doing Amanars and gymnasts not even age eligible for London doing full-in beam dismounts. Setting an age limit for senior international competition does not stop young gymnasts from doing really difficult skills, making them still injury-prone, more or less defying the point of an age limit rule.

That being said, China did break a rule and is being punished for it. Why is this not being enforced across the board? In 2002, Alexandra Marinescu, a member of Romania's 1996 Olympic team, admitted to being underage. Nothing has been done to punish the Romanians. Is racism at work? If the FIG wants to keep a silly rule in place, the consequences should at least be enforced unilaterally.