BEIJING -- He Kexin marched into the news conference for gold-medal winners fashionably late Monday night. Already on the podium were still rings winner Chen Yibing and his coach; men's vault winner Leszek Blanik and his coach; and women's trampoline winner He Wenna and her coach.
He Kexin pulled up a chair. The 16-year-old from China had been in doping control, being tested after she won the uneven parallel bars gold medal by virtue of a tiebreaking procedure over Nastia Liukin from Parker, Texas.
Liukin, 18, now has four medals -- gold in the individual all-around, two silvers and a bronze -- and she will go for a fifth medal tonight on the balance beam, where she is the world champion.
He and Liukin received a score of 16.725, but He won because she received a lower average deduction (0.933) than Liukin (0.966). China's Yang Yilin won the bronze medal with a score of 16.650.
Though there is evidence that He is only 14 -- a story published by several Chinese media outlets last November quoted a Chinese sports federation official as calling her a 13-year-old 2012 Olympic hopeful -- she is now a double-gold medal winner and an unflappable competitor on and off the arena floor.
When He arrived at her news conference, she was asked three times about the discrepancies in her reported age.
"My explanation is that my real age is 16," she said. "I was born in 1992." When she read news accounts last fall that listed her as 13, He said she did not feel the need to correct the reporting.
"This is not important," she said. "I don't care what others say. I'm only focused on my gymnastics. I am 16, that's why I'm here. If I wouldn't be, I couldn't be here. That is all."
He's teammate Yang has also been part of the age controversy, with her birth date appearing as 1994 on some provincial registration lists. Olympic gymnasts need to be at least 16 or turn that age during the year of the competition.
But it was the numbers on the scoreboard that were confusing Monday.
The tiebreaking formula is so convoluted, former U.S. coach Bela Karolyi didn't understand how it worked and even the partisan Chinese crowd at the National Indoor Stadium seemed subdued in its reaction to He's receiving the gold medal on the podium.
Until after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, double or even triple medals were awarded if there were tie scores. Bruno Grandi, president of the international gymnastics federation, FIG, wishes that were still the case. "If you have the same score," he said, "you should get the same medal."
