As an avid gymnastics fan, I’ve been following the He Kexin age scandal closely. A handful of people within the gymnastics community knew about the discrepancies in her official paperwork long before the story broke last month in the New York Times. Even they’re surprised, I think, that it’s blown up into the shemozzle it is now, with 5 of the 6 gold medal-winning team members suspected of being underage.

It all makes me wish science was better at making biologically-based age determinations–the human equivalent of slicing a tree open and counting the rings. Forensic scientists routinely estimate how old children and teens are by taking X-rays. They zero in on how completely bones in the wrist and knee have fused, since the various stages of fusion correspond with well-defined periods of development. A dental exam can also provide clues about age–how ground down molars are, whether wisdom teeth have started to come in. But these methods are only accurate to within about 18 months, and since the IOC is trying to figure out whether the girls in question are 14 or 16, that just doesn’t fly. Still, I’ll take imperfect science over the claims of a totalitarian regime any day. He Kexin, get thee to a radiologist!

YouTube user JoeGuruTX sums things up better than I ever could…