Nastia began at three. Terin Humphrey, who competed in Athens began at age two. I'm not sure the majority of the Chinese begin at three either - Cheng Fei began at 6 years old and that seems to be relatively standard for the Chinese gymnasts. I wouldn't believe the nonsense you hear on NBC.

USA likes to pretend that their gymnasts are free and happy while the Chinese are repressed and robotic, the same Cold War rhetoric we heard in the 80's about the Soviet system - however, it is the Chinese who laugh and smile on the competition floor and are relatively healthy while it is the Americans who usually look like they want to die and can barely walk by competition time. With the exception of Shawn, trained by a Chinese coach, who only works out 20-30 hours a week, the USA girls work out 40-50 hours (especially in the run up to the Olympics) admit to only eating "fruit and chicken" to fuel these workouts, attend 2.5 hours of high school a day as Nastia did or are homeschooled, and attend brutal training camps with Marta Karolyi once a month where they must be routine ready and perfectly in shape even in the "off-season." There really is nothing much to choose between the two systems when it comes to the hard work and sacrifice these athletes endure.

P.S. Bela has a lot of nerve criticizing the Chinese for age-fixing when the Romanian gymnasts he coached were routinely underage with falsified documents. Note that the Karolyis do not object to the alleged use of underage gymnasts because they agree with rules instituted for the safety and well-being of the gymnasts, but only because they would prefer to be able to use 12 year old girls themselves instead of women who know their own minds. Also, given that Chellsie Memmel turned out to have a broken foot, yet still competed bars (right after taking off her air cast) I don't think they ought to complain about the practices of any other country's coaches.