Apparently “He Kexin” is only 13 years old and should not be eligible for the Olympics which means, the whiny US Gymnastics team will probably be given the gold. That isn’t the biggest problem I have with the article. What is more confusing is ESPNs need to repeatedly use the gymnasts first name, He.
So you end up getting gems like, “If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China’s first women’s team Olympic gold in gymnastics. She is also a favorite for gold in Monday’s uneven bars final.”
ESPN definitely is not short of a sense of humor, but why not change the gymnasts last name throughout the article. The Associated Press usually doesn’t mind small edits for clarification purposes but instead we are stuck with a confusing mix of shes and hes, which would leave one to question whether the athlete was too young or of the wrong gender for the sport they participated in.
I’m glad that ARC employs a full time copywriter to avoid pitfalls like this and insure all of our clients get their message across clearly.