There are very few things that get me as wound up as lying. In all its forms, from tax fraud to Congressional testimony, dishonesty drives me nuts. When combined with the purity of athletics, dishonesty makes me absolutely homicidal.

The ethics of sport are simple. They require an unwavering adherence to the rules, combined with an abiding sense of fairness, regardless of the scope or import of the event in question. This simple coda seems to have escaped the International Olympic Committee, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), and the entire nation-state of China.

On August 13th, 2008 six Chinese women took the floor at Beijing National Indoor Stadium to compete in the gymnastics all-around. They left with a gold medal, despite loud and largely provable allegations that they’d included underage athletes on their roster. These eighth-grade athletes had a decisive physical advantage over their larger and more mature American brethren, embracing the acrobatic benefits of their diminutive size on the way to victory.

Few would deny that a physical advantage, gained outside the boundaries of rule, is a punishable offense. Nonetheless, the IOC chose to ignore the allegations of “age-doping” by the Chinese, foisting the problem on the FIG, which subsequently halted its investigation after receiving Chinese passports putting all three girls at the appropriate age. Mounds of evidence indicate that this easy acceptance was premature, including reports from the Chinese Government’s own news agency, registration records from the General Administration of Sport of China, and a blatantly doctored article from China Daily, all of which point to an illegal 14- and 15-year old lineup.

The same IOC, while absolving itself of any obligation to confirm the age of Olympic athletes, pursues drug-doping allegations with fervor. The IOC is in the midst of conducting a record 4500 drug tests in Beijing, a program that has already stripped a North Korean sharpshooter of his medals and caused four others to be expelled from the Games. The shooter, Kim Jong Su, was separated from his silver and bronze medals after testing positive for propranolol, a beta-blocker that slowed his heart rate during competition, a decided advantage in his steady-handed sport.

This lopsided enforcement is hypocrisy at its finest. Whether age-doped or drug-doped, athletes with rule-breaking physical advantages should be subjected to the same intense scrutiny. After all, both types of dishonesty lead to the same result: on-field supremacy.

Compared with the ease of testing for known banned substances, disputing documents created by the Chinese Government is a hundred-story challenge. Expelling a drug-taking North Korean gunman from the Games is a walk in the park compared to stripping an underage 14-year old girl of her medal.

Regardless, the IOC has done the world a great disservice by ignoring one violation over the other. Ethics should not be malleable to the needs of the moment, rules should not be enforced based on degree of difficulty, and we should not mete out punishment based on the moral stigma of the violation.

Presumably, there would be no question as to the status of the Chinese women if all six had tested positive for drugs. They would be summarily dismissed and given an asterisk-laden footnote in Olympic history. Yet they didn’t take drugs, and compared to that heinous offense, lying about your age is par for the course. Such a morally inoffensive violation is easy to overlook—so much so that there is talk of eliminating the gymnastics age restriction all together.

In weightlifting and other power events, we’ve long recognized the respective advantages of age and weight, creating classes in nearly any competition where they could affect the outcome. Gymnastics fails to make these fine distinctions, instead barring too-young athletes from competing on the Olympic stage. Presumably, this achieves the same effect as a class system, leveling the competitive balance and neutralizing the advantages of small stature.

Changing the rules to accommodate the pervasive practice of “age-doping” is a failure to recognize the effects of maturity and size on performance, and a neat bit of moral sidestepping to boot. Perhaps we should follow up an age amendment to the FIG rulebook with another allowing the use of human growth hormone in track and field and exogenous testosterone in weightlifting. The arguments for each are carbon copies of the other, save a few nouns here and there.

Proponents of lowering the minimum age in gymnastics acknowledge that “age-doping” occurs regardless of the rules, providing an advantage to those willing to present a forged document or two. Those advocating the legalization of steroids point to its rampant use despite bans, a similar situation that puts those unwilling to dose at a decided disadvantage. Essentially, it’s the “everyone else is doing it” excuse that didn’t work on your Mom.

Save the moral divide between lying about your age and lying about taking drugs, I see no difference between the North Korean gunslinger and his high bar-swinging Chinese neighbors. Both circumvented the rules for the sake of winning. Perhaps this behavior is acceptable to those operating at the highest echelons of sport, where the only goal is outright dominance. Where I come from, we call it bullshit.

The IOC’s own Olympic Charter calls for “fair play” and “respect for fundamental ethical principles”. Perhaps they should give it another read. Along with its cowardly gymnastics-regulating cousin, the IOC should be booed into obscurity for its response to the Chinese controversy. Better yet, they should own up and strip six little girls of their ill-gotten medals.

After all, if ever there was a place where righteousness and fair play should transcend political concerns, scheming bureaucrats, and the innocence of prepubescent girls, it should be the world’s highest stage.