By He Shenquan

In 2000, the young gymnast Dong Fangxiao was part of the team that won bronze for China at the Sydney Olympic Games.

Too young, as it turns out, Dong was only 14 at the time, two years below the minimum age, and her papers were faked.

As a result, her bronze medal had just been stripped away by the International Olympics Committee (IOC).

In general, the Chinese public feels very ashamed over the issue. The Chinese Gymnastics Association also immediately expressed its respect for the IOC's penalty and claimed it would deal with the incident seriously in order to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.

However, in order to really prevent such shameful events, we should at least do one more thing - ask the involved athletes and their coaches to return the bonus they received from the government for this medal.

According to China's sporting regulations, bonuses are given to organizations and individuals that have made contributions to Chinese sports.

For the Sydney Olympic, 150,000 yuan ($18,116 at that time) was given for each gold medal, 80,000 for silver and 50,000 for bronze.

Moreover, Olympic medalists also usually get bonuses of about the same amount from their provincial and municipal governments and sports bureaus as well. Coaches also earn such rewards.

Both national and provincial bonus money comes from the taxpayers. The public are willing to give them some material incentive after they have won glory for the country, and even supports behind the increasing size of bonuses in recent years.

But the country should not pay for the fraud, and taxpayers don't want to pay.

At present, the domestic disputes mainly focus on whether Dong deliberately faked her age, and who was behind the scam. However, it is a definite fact that Dong's age was faked. The fraudulent behavior must be punished.

It is also sure that Dong, who, after all, was only a young girl at the time, was not the only person responsible for the age fraud. Who else should be responsible and who else should return their bonuses? It is not difficult to find out.

How much money should they return? This is also easy to calculate.

We cannot control advertisement revenue and other sources of sponsorship, but, although the bonus money is a mere fleabite on the national scale, every taxpayer has the right to question where their money is going. The guilty parties should feel ashamed enough to give back the money.

Rumors of other fake age scandals have been spreading for years, and Dong's may well not be the only case. Previously, the authorities in charge definitely denied the fraud while facing questioning.

The Chinese Gymnastics Association has provided inconsistent answers many times at different occasions, which has badly damaged public trust in them.

In order to rebuild the credibility of Chinese sports, this incident should not be handled casually. The authority should investigate thoroughly, find out the whole truth, and establish appropriate punishments.

This is not aimed at Dong, who was also a victim herself. In order to help Chinese sports develop healthily, we must experience the painful process of self-treatment. Recovering the bonus is only one small step.

Judging from domestic reaction to the scandal, many people are complaining about the purely medal-orientated approach of the Chinese sporting establishment.

Chinese society no longer attaches as much importance as in the past to Olympic medals, to say nothing of accepting the medal obtained by fraud.

People would rather see healthy and authentic Chinese sports.

The Chinese sporting establishment should respect this and begin the process of change.

The author is an editor with the Global Times Chinese edition. heshenquan@globaltimes.com.cn