Insulting an entire group of people will not be tolerated.  And frankly I'm done putting up with your anti-US, anti-Mod, etc...crap.  You're constantly tossing barbs at anything and everything and its going to stop. How it stops is your choice.

If he said that about China he would not be banned .

Konni's banning is not the topic of this thread, but I can gaurantee you that you're dead wrong about this.

Stay on topic.

yeah...when you force children to practice one sport everyday for their whole lives, they tend to get good at it. and china still had to cheat to get some of those medals.

Other than the one underage gymnast how did they cheat? Its not like they didn't have another gymnast to take her place either.

I understand your point but frankly I agree with Konni's sentiment that far too little credit is given to the Chinese for their effort..regardless of how terrible their training methods are or aren't they still deserve credit as athletes.

all of the score-based events... china will definetly have an edge.. it's their home turf. It would be insulting if they didn't. And also: US athletes play for other countries. That's how they can (barely) keep up with us. It's also why micheal phelps almost lost one of his 8 gold medals.

its 3 of them

Well, it's too late now, taking away a medal from a 14-year-old is just cruel.

And that happens like everywhere in the world?  Most of the times when parents find out that their child is good at something they force they child very hard (You have a DR Phil episode about it).  And everywhere children are suffering because of it.

@Stratking,

A lot of the athletes train in the US because we have the best facilities, best training, etc...but they are from those countries still. I see what you're saying but it's their choice to train here and compete for another country. Just because we have great facilities doesn't mean we should be able to keep that advantage all to ourselves. I personally like the competition because it drives our athletes to be even better.

The home turf advantage thing is something the IOC always scoffs at but the argument has a very solid backing from the stats and not just from the subjective events but the objective ones as well. It has more to do with the atmosphere, support, etc..than anything else imo.

@MrBubbles,

I've only seen proof for the one of them and I'm kind of a "show me" type of person. Regardless gymnastics is a single sport and it only accounts for a small portion of their gold medals and certainly not enough to put the US on top in the gold medal count.

I think the reason people get upset with this type of talk is because it diminishes the very legitimate performances of many other Chinese athletes. My point is simply that the ire and disdain should be focused at the Chinese government not its people or its athletes. The athletes deserve praise and recognition for busting their asses the same as every other athlete who competed.