Earlier yesterday, China’s deputy sports minister blamed an ”administrative error” for the confusion surrounding the age of He Kexin. Cui Dalin told a press conference that officials transferred He Kexin from a local team to the national team at an inter-city competition last year. He said the discrepancy between He Kexin’s stated age and actual age occurred during the process of registering the move.
”So it was the appearance of a mistake in the process of transferring teams that the misunderstanding appeared,” he said.