1. China’s Elite
A LOOK BACK AT THE CONTROVERSIAL 2008
BEIJING GYMNASTICS TEAM AND THE RACE
TO WIN GOLD IN RIO

2. The price of gold

3. Proposed documentary
 Beginning: videos from the
2008 China Gymnastics
Team. Switch to young
children as they train to one
day be an Olympic gymnast in
the Olympic-driven system
which is called by Chinese
people “juguo tizhi” which
means whole nation regime
 Middle: Sydney and Beijing
Olympics-allegations of
cheating in 2000 and 2008
 End: look to Rio with the
future of China’s gymnastics

4. Age requirement to compete
 1997: FIG raised the minimum age to
compete to 16 years old
 2000: Dong Fangxiao was a member of
the Chinese team. They won the Bronze
medal. Birthdate listed as: 1983. In 2008
she worked as a technical official during
the Beijing Olympics. Birthdate listed as:
1986
 FIG investigated and found she was 14
during the 2000 Olympics. IOC upheld
this and nullified the bronze medal along
with Fangxiao’s individual placement
 Her teammate Yang Yun admitted in an
interview that she was 14 when she
competed, however she was found
innocent and was able to keep her bronze
medal for uneven bars due to lack of
documented evidence (4)
 Younger gymnasts are lighter and more
fearless-Nellie Kim, five-time Olympic gold
medalist for former Soviet Union
Dong Fangxiao during the 2000 Summer Olympics

5. 2008 Beijing Gymnastics Team
 The Summer Olympics were
held in Beijing, China
 Questions about some
members age was raised before
the games began
 Chinese newspaper profile
listed He as 14. Now blocked to
view national registry listed He
as born in 1994 (1)
 Jiang was listed as 14 in
Zhejiang Province sports
administration (1)
 He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan, Deng
Linlin, and Yang Yilin were
thought to be underage

6. International
Gymnastics Federation
(FIG) investigated the
team over six weeks and
determined the
documentation
confirmed the ages of
the members fit the
eligibility to compete (2)
"There was strong
circumstantial evidence,
certainly, but these
investigations are not
my job. I'm not the
police or Interpol. If I
find that there was
cheating, then I can act”- He Kexin won gold for Uneven bars. China won gold for
Bruno Grandi, FIG the prestigious team all-around medal. China was ranked
President (3) 1st overall, winning 11 gold medals in gymnastics

7. Proof of falsified information
This article was originally It was changed to this
posted on China Daily during the 2008 Olympics

8. The question remains
 Did they falsify their ages? Why
didn’t China just use girls who
could meet the age requirement?
 Why is there so much pressure on
these girls at such a young age?
 What happens to the members of
the team after they cannot compete
anymore?
 Why is there a fascination with
China from the western world
when other countries have been A gymnast practices for Rio at the General
caught in sport scandals, most Administration of Sport of China
notably Lance Armstrong’s doping
scandal?

9. Pressure is on
Chinese athletes training Chinese athletes post
(8) career (7)
 Gymnasts train at the Guojian Xuan Lian • “…almost half of 6,000
Zhongju training center and the pressure is professional athletes retiring from
high to win gold at the Olympics
 “There is enormous pressure coming from competition each year end up
the government”-Chinese national coach, jobless or without further
Huang Wen Bin schooling plan”-China's national
 Parents hand their children over to the state news agency Xinhua
and tortuous methods are used to ensure the
young gymnasts want to win • “Nearly 80% of China's 300,000
 Crying is forbidden, four gymnasts sleep in retired athletes are struggling with
unheated rooms on the same mattress joblessness, injury or poverty”-
 At Shishahai Sports School 550 handpicked China Sports Daily
students practice for 3-5 hours a day.
Gymnastic students begin training at 4 years • Zhang Shangwu joined the
old (8) national gymnastics team when he
 Chinese diver Wu Minxia’s parents didn’t tell was 12, but after his career ended,
her about her mother’s breast cancer and her he was poor and was spotted
grandparents’ deaths because they didn’t
want it to affect her training (11) begging at a subway station last
year (10)

10. Willing to speak out
 Fan Ye began sports
kindergarten at 6 and retired at
20 in 2008
 The government pocketed the
majority of Fan’s earnings
 From her memoir: After seeing
the intensity of Fan's training at
Shijiazhuang, her mother told
one of her coaches that she
regretted putting her daughter
into the sports kindergarten. The
coach responded: "Do you think
she's only your daughter? She's
the state property now!” (9)
 Ye says if you’re not a world
champion, the state won’t help
you get an education at a
University

11. Government
Juguo tizhi: whole nation
regime. First introduced
in 1980 to “channel all
available resources to the
Olympic games” (13)
It’s been estimated that
during the 2004 Athens
Olympic games, China
spent $103 million to win
one gold (12)
The government invests
money in many schools
where athletes train to
hopefully be chosen for
the Olympic team. They
spend more time training
than being educated

12.  Shang Chungsong
Who to look  Zeng Siqi
out for in Rio
 Huang Huidin
China’s young gymnasts
are already training for  Tan Jiaxin
2016. Here are the
names of six potential  Lou Nina
contenders for the 2016
Olympic Gymnastics  Li Yiting
team.

13. Why is this important?
Cheating scandals in sports are always going to be relevant.
Take recent doping Lance Armstrong scandal for example.
There is an interest by the public in this
It is only a matter of time before members of the 2008 China Gymnastics team are
found to have been underage. It took ten years for the IOC to strip the 2000 team
of their medal
Similar documentary: BBC did a documentary on Shanghai Circus School’s
training regime. Similar to gymnastics, young children are encouraged to train
vigorously to be number 1 at what they do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH-jQN3Ln60

14. What are my goals/who is my target audience?
• Goals: To create sympathetic characters in the young Chinese gymnasts.
They train their whole lives to win gold at the Olympics. If there should be
any outrage toward the Chinese gymnastic team, this anger should be
toward the coaches/adults who forge their documents and falsify their ages
• My target audience is the Olympic viewers and people who watch sports.
Usually the Olympics attract a higher demographic, but during the London
2012 Summer Olympics studies found a younger audience was watching
the games. Nearly 70% of children watched the games with their parents
(5)
• I plan to reach my target audience (general public) mainly social media.
Social media use will continue to grow over the next four years. I will also
reach out to NBC because my documentary release would coincide with
the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics opening. If they do not want to tie my
documentary into their coverage, I will market the documentary as a tie-in
to the 2016 Olympics.

15. Timeline
 It will take a year in pre-
production planning and
research
 It will take at least two
years to produce the film. I
would like to be finished
with it by early 2016
 It will take 4 months to edit
the film in post-production
 I will release it when the
2016 Rio Summer
Olympics begin