[2][3] As with several of her teammates, questions were raised in the international press when earlier reports surfaced indicating she may not have been old enough to compete in the 2008 Olympics; however, an official investigation found in her favor.

[6] According to China Daily, Kexin was recruited for the Chinese National Team in 2007, after her uneven bars win at the Intercity Games drew the attention of head coach Huang Yubin.

Because He's individual B-panel marks had a lower variance, she won the gold medal as per the Olympic tiebreaker rules of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG).

[3][17][21][22] Chinese officials maintained that He was in fact old enough to compete, stating that Xinhua had not confirmed He's age before filing their news reports[20] and attributing the discrepancies to faulty paperwork when He was transferred from Beijing to Hubei.

On August 2, the International Olympic Committee stated that it would not investigate the discrepancy in He's reported age because the FIG's own verification system was sufficient proof of eligibility.

[21] The Times reported that a computer expert "Stryde" had recovered one of the deleted registration lists showing He's birth date as January 1, 1994, through cached pages on the search engine Baidu.

[30] However, the FIG held an emergency meeting about the situation on August 23 and requested additional documentation for every gymnast on the Chinese team, with the exception of Cheng Fei.

[31][32] On August 24, a Chinese official addressed the registration lists found online, stating that the discrepancy was due to an administrative error that took place when He was transferred between teams while participating in the InterCity Games in 2007.