Now they ask

The New York Times has the story:

The International Olympic Committee asked the world governing body for gymnastics to investigate whether members of the Chinese women’s team were too young to compete in the Olympics.
The I.O.C. instructed the international gymnastics federation, known as the F.I.G., to take up the issue with the Chinese gymnastics federation and the Chinese Olympic Committee and report back.
The F.I.G. has asked the Chinese for official documents, including birth certificates, of its entire women’s gymnastics team, according to I.O.C. officials. At the start of the Beijing Games, I.O.C. officials said that they had reviewed documentation provided by the Chinese team, and that they were satisfied that the gymnasts met age requirements.
In a statement, Steve Penny, the president of USA Gymnastics, said: “USA Gymnastics has always believed this issue needed to be addressed by the F.I.G. and I.O.C. An investigation would help bring closure to the issue and remove any cloud of speculation from this competition.”
A gymnast must turn sixteen in the year of the Olympics to compete in the Games. Chinese officials responded by providing copies of passports indicating that the athletes in question were eligible. Sixteen has been the minimum age for Olympic eligibility since 1997.
According to online sports registration lists in China, half the team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan — would be underage. The F.I.G., however, has said that those gymnasts were eligible and that the ages on their passports were correct.
Bruno Grandi, president of the F.I.G., said at the start of these Games that the passports were the best evidence of a gymnast’s age because they were an official government document. Grandi said the F.I.G. would not look into using birth certificates: “Why? The passports are official proof.” He also said then that the F.I.G. would not investigate the matter any further, nor would the federation look into the age falsification of Yang Yun of China in 2000. Yang, who won an individual and a team bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, later said in an interview on state-run television that she was fourteen at those Games. A Hunan Province sports administration report verified that she was fourteen when she competed in Sydney.
Age falsification has been a lingering problem in international women’s gymnastics. Younger gymnasts are often lighter, making it easier to perform certain tricks on apparatus like the uneven bars. Some coaches also believe gymnasts are less fearful of injury when they are younger.
The minimum age for Olympic competition was raised from fourteen to fifteen in the early 1980s. In 1993, the North Korean gymnastics federation was barred from the world championships for falsifying ages. At one point, the federation listed one of its gymnasts, Kim Gwang Suk, as fifteen for three straight years.

Rico says all you have to do is look at those kids and you know they're not sixteen; now there'll be asterisks all over the record books...