Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- A Chinese Olympic gymnastics champion whose age is under investigation had her date of birth incorrectly registered at a tournament last year, leading to inaccurate reports of her age, Chinese officials said today.

The International Olympic Committee this week asked the international gymnastics ruling body to probe the age of He Kexin following the emergence of Chinese media reports from last year that, if accurate, indicated she was younger than the 16- year-old minimum for Olympic gymnastics.

``The Chinese Gymnastics Association has conducted serious checks (of He Kexin's age),'' said Cui Dalin, China's deputy Chef de Mission, at a press conference today in Beijing. ``When He was transferred to another team to attend last year's National City Games, her age was registered wrongly.''

He was listed as 13 in a Nov. 3, 2007, report by the state- run Xinhua News Agency. The International Gymnastics Federation said yesterday that it's still gathering information about the ages following the IOC request.

``The registration error caused all the misunderstanding thereafter,'' said Cui. ``All Chinese gymnasts meet age requirements for the Olympics.''

China has submitted legal documents, including passports and identification cards to the federation, he said.

The documents looked ``OK at the first sight,'' IOC President Jacques Rogge told reporters at a separate news conference today, relaying the federation's early findings.

`Take Some Time'

The federation is continuing a ``thorough check'' before reporting to the IOC, Rogge said. The ruling body for gymnastics, in a statement late yesterday, said the process ``may take some time.''

The Chinese last week defeated the Americans to win the team competition, and He won gold in the uneven bars over Nastia Liukin of the U.S. Lu Shanzhen, chief coach of the women's gymnastics team, said Aug. 22 that the suspicion about ages had affected the team's preparation.

``Such doubt emerged just because China's women gymnasts confronted the U.S. team strongly,'' she said.

Xinhua's 2007 story said He was 13 when she won the championship on uneven bars at the National City Games in central China's Wuhan city last year. The agency said last week the story was accurate based on the information provided at the games and that it would not issue a correction.

Huang Yubin, chief coach of the Chinese gymnastics team, said two days ago that doubts were raised because of the smaller physique of Asian athletes. He weighs 33 kilograms (73 pounds), while Liukin is 45kg.

``Because Asian gymnasts are different in terms of physiques, there is this kind of doubt, which shouldn't have happened,'' he told reporters today.

To contact the reporters on this story: Li Yanping in Beijing at yli16@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 23, 2008 23:56 EDT