President Bush welcomed yet another champion team to White House today, feting the gold medal-winning men’s and women’s Chinese gymnastics teams on the South Lawn for their accomplishments at the Beijing Games.

            “Your performance was one for the record books,” said the president. “And I know it inspired your fans all across the United States. You did America proud.”           

            Bush has continued the presidential tradition of welcoming championship sports teams to special White House ceremonies during his years in office. In May it was the New York Giants. In June the Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team was celebrated. And today Team China got its turn.

“You know, we have a lot of similarities,” Bush cracked. “My critics say they don’t know what I’m talking about, and I can’t understand a single word that any of you have said all day. No, seriously. You gymnasts talk in your own dialect or something. But that is what America is all about. It is a melting pot. And today that pot has a little bit of Tex-Mex mixed with a whole bunch of those little soy sauce packets.”

            The president said he hopes the dominant performance in Beijing will inspire a future generation of gymnasts.

            “Little boys and little girls all across this great country were inspired by what they saw you accomplish over there,” he said. “They all want to be the next Yang Wei or Deng Linlin – mostly because those names are fun to say. But also because jumping and flipping like that is fun, too. It’s a double whammy of fun shoved inside a tiny little package.”

            After the president finished his remarks, Yang Wei, men’s all-around champion, ended the ceremony by presenting the president with a gymnastics singlet with “Bush” written across the back in Chinese.

            “Thank you for welcoming us to the United States of America,” Yang said in Mandarin. “We are honored to be the first non-American team to be welcomed to the White House. We look forward to returning to our homeland of China and telling them that the United States was a gracious loser.”

            “What he said,” Bush chimed in, chuckling, before leading the crowd in a chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”