They are making a splash (some quite literally) at these fast-paced Olympic games.
19 year old World Champion making an entire nation proud.
18 year old fencer ranked second in the world.
17 year old girl kicking butt in Taekwondo.
16 year old gymnasts (or so the Chinese say) doing ridiculously perfect routines.
15 year old divers tumbling off a platform three stories high and ending up on top of the podium.
And we're not done yet, 14 year old diver attracting 100 inquisitive reporters to his press conference who seem to be less interested in his diving than his girlfriends.
Is this the Olympic Games or the World Junior Athletic Gathering???
The tenacious teenagers at the Beijing Games are putting on an impressive show of talent and appropriately, against the backdrop of a nation in which half of its 1.3 billion residents are under 30. The kids are everywhere, too! Beginning with football (Olympic jargon for soccer), you may have heard of 19 year old phenom Freddy Adu who made his debut in the MLS at age 14 and is competing for Team USA. On the wrestling mat, Minnesota high schooler Jake Deitchler unexpectedly qualified for the Olympics at age 18. As for cycling, handsome American Taylor Phinney is barely 18 but he's already got a world record under his belt.
In the fencing hall, world #2 Rebecca Ward (age 18) received bronze medals in the American sweep of Women's Individual Sabre competition and the Women's Team Sabre event. After these Games, Rebecca will be starting her undergraduate studies at Duke University. As for that 17 year old butt-kicking girl, her name is Charlotte Craig from Murrieta, California. Craig won't graduate high school until June of 09! Out of Paraguay, Marcelo Aguirre is just 15 years old and scheduled to play his first Olympic table tennis match in the PKU Gymnasium next Tuesday. You can be sure he'll be feeling tickly jitters come next Tuesday. Priscila Tommy, another ping pong paddler, is just 17 years old but has already had the honourable duty of being her country's flag bearer at the Opening
Ceremonies. Tommy hails from the tropical island of Vanuatu. And if you think young guns are just in it for the fun, think again! Earlier this week, China produced a muscular 17 year old weightlifting champion in Long QingQuan. Not to be outdone, teenage swimmer Liu ZiGe, also 17, shocked the world by dolphin kicking her way to a heart-warming Olympic gold in the Women's 200 M Butterfly, upsetting a graceful Aussie favourite Jessicah Schipper (bronze) and countryman Jiao LiuYang, also a teenager at age 19 (silver). And to the sport of gymnastics, where spectators have gotten used to undersized girls just starting puberty. Remember Nadia Comaneci? The Romanian who excelled in Montreal, becoming the first gymnast to be awarded the perfect 10? Unbelievably, she was only 14 years old at the time. To the contrary, the FIG (Federation Internationale de Gymnastique) has now put a rule in place restricting
participants under 16 from entering the Olympic Games. In Beijing however, it's win at all cost and that's spurred some controversy surrounding the ages of the Chinese gymnasts. Surely and squarely, some of the Chinese girls look no where near 16, but apparently, "official documents" indicate that they are in fact old enough to compete. Sixteen or fourteen or twelve...even the most fierce of critics cannot denied the raw talent and truly extravagant performances the Chinese have put on at the National Indoor Stadium. Coming off a dramatic men's team win the night before, the Chinese propelled the home team and the entire nation past the battling Americans to bring home the momentous gold. Don't feel bad for Team USA, they took home silver and that's quite the accomplishment for the three American 16 year olds standing on the podium. One of those was Shawn Johnson, who at age 16 is already world champion in the Women's All-Around.Next door to the gymnastics facilities in National Indoor Stadium is the famously beautiful National Aquatics Centre, cutely nicknamed "the Water Cube". If you're looking for fresh faced young men and women who haven't had to shave yet, the Water Cube is the place to be. It is also where you'll find the Games' 2 youngest competitors. Twelve year old Antoinette Joyce Guedia Mouafo of Cameroon (she's not even a teenager!) who so rarely trains in a 50 m pool that just coming to Beijing to swim in an Olympic-sized pool is a golden opportunity. Same goes for Dwayne Didon from Seychelles (a hundred bucks to whoever can find that country on the map); he is just 13 years old and has only been training for 4 years.
From a historical standpoint, it's not that uncommon to find teenagers speeding in the pool or diving off platforms. Canadians are sure to be familiar with the sight of bony little Alexandre Despatie, who in 1998 at age 13, outdove his Commonwealth competitors and snatched gold on the 10 m
platform. Nowadays, you can find a slightly larger Despatie doing the same twists and turns which brought him to the nation-wide spotlight. Four years ago in Athens, the then 19 year old brought home a silver prize in the 3 M Springboard. Despatie has also served as a role model to his younger counterparts. Despatie-admirer British teenage diving wonder Thomas Daley has made it to Beijing at the tender age of 14. He is the one drawing 100 reporters to his press conference and carrying the future hopes of British diving on his broadening shoulders. Already European champion, Daley is constantly pursued by autograph seekers, even in China, where diving's popularity is not far off from that of table tennis. You can bet that 4 years from now, in his native land of Britain, Daley's every move will be followed and scrutinized by the cameras.
Though Tom Daley may not be seasoned enough yet to bring home some Olympic hardware, there are two teenage sensations from China who have already done just that. Chen RuoLin and Wang Xin, 15 and 16 respectively, tumbled and piked and twisted their way to a gold medal and a pretty sweet Olympic title on Day 5 of these Games. It reminded some of the stupendous performance of the then 13 year old diving champ, Fu MingXia, who also tumbled and piked and twisted her way to a sugar sweet Olympic title in 1992. Blowing away most of their competition, Chen and Wang cracked not a single bit under the immense national pressure. Wang Xin had turned 16 just the day before their big dives and can you ask for a better birthday present? The silver went to the Aussie pair Briony Cole and 16 year old Melissa Wu. Also competing in that same event-the Women's Synchronized 10 M Platform-were two American 15 year olds: Mary Beth Dunnichay and Haley Ishimatsu who train together in Indianapolis, IN. A day earlier, Thomas Finchum (18) and David Boudia (19), two fun-loving young guns from the USA finished 5th in the Men's 10 M Synchro. With his superiority, it may not come as a surprise that Michael Phelps smashed the first world record of his incomparable career when he was just 15 years old. You probably don't need me to tell you what happened in Athens, when Phelps was only 19. Now, at age 23, he has become one of the immortal legends of the sport complete with his autobiography already having hit the shelves. The number of teenage swimmers, if you can actually believe this, has been on the decline in the
last two decades. Natural talents like Michael Phelps are far and few in between. Korean hero Taehwan Park is arguably one such talent. Park, who will turn 19 in September put on an incredible performance in the 2006 Asian Games, capturing 7 aquatic medals and was named Athlete of the Games. Now, he's doing it on the world stage in Beijing, having clocked first in the 400 M Freestyle and obtaining silver in the 200. You already know that the two youngest competitors in Beijing come from the pool. Not much older than those two is Li XuanXu, a 14 year old medley swimmer, who perhaps energized by the home crowd, managed to squeeze her way into the final of the Women's 400 IM. Though she finished a distant eighth out of eight, her talent is still hard to fathom. Lindsay Seemann of Canada, a 15 year old backstroker from Newmarket is Canada's youngest competitor in Beijing. Competing in the same 200 M Back event as Seemann is Elizabeth Beisel, an American who will be turning 16 on August 18th.
Having born in 1993 myself, it is amazing to see that so many guys and girls my age are already on the world stage, taking part in the sacred Olympic Games. Frankly, I'd love to becoming an Olympic champion and be on the world stage but I don't have the athletic gift needed to be an Olympian. But I'm perfectly fine sitting at my laptop and writing about interesting people like Taehwan Park, Tom Daley and Shawn Johnson. I'm happy just to tell their story.
-D
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