FOR ten days Paul Hamm has been an Olympic gold medal-winner, but, in an extraordinary row seen as a test of the modern spirit of the Olympics, the all-around gymnastic champion has been asked to hand back his medal.
The sport’s governing body, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), said that a marking error by Olympic judges had led to Hamm wrongly being announced as a winner. Yesterday it asked Hamm — the first American to win the men’s all-round medal — to return the gold so that it could be awarded to the Korean Yang Tae Young.
In a letter to Hamm, Professor Bruno Grandi, the FIG president, said: “If you were to return the medal the FIG and IOC would highly appreciate the magnitude of this gesture. This act, which demonstrates the highest level of honesty, places you among the true Olympic champions. At this moment you are the only one who can make the decision.”
The FIG has maintained that there is no procedure within its rules that allows for an appeal against the judges’ scoring, and it was the judges who made the error.
The mistake occurred in the marking of the parallel bars apparatus, one of the six disciplines that make up the all-around competition. The judges gave a start value for Yang of 9.9 instead of 10.
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Yang’s score for the apparatus was recorded as 9.712, and the total score for the Korean on the six apparatus as 57.774, placing him in the bronze medal position. When the error was identified, the extra tenth of a mark took Yang’s overall tally above that of Hamm.
The FIG has suspended the judges involved, but found itself in a cul-de-sac, unable under its own rules to amend the scores, or to accept a Korean challenge to the judging.
The United States Olympic Committee has denounced the attempts to have Hamm return the medal as “outrageous and improper”.
“We are extremely proud of Paul Hamm and all he has accomplished,” Peter Ueberroth, the US Olympic Committee chairman, said. “His comeback in the individual men’s all-around is emblematic of the spirit of an Olympic champion.
“In the face of adversity, he refused to give up and battled to earn his Olympic gold medal. Now, faced with more adversity, he will again not give up — and he will have the full support of the United States Olympic Committee.”