South Korea appealed to sport’s supreme legal body yesterday to award Yang Tae-young the Olympic gymnastics all-round gold medal after a scoring error robbed him off the title last week. Paul Hamm, who became the first American man to win the Olympic all-round title, should not have been awarded the gold, the governing body of gymnastics (FIG) ruled on Saturday.
Despite admitting the error, the FIG refused to redistribute the medals and the Koreans have now applied to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn the federation’s decision. “As we made very clear from the beginning, we want this obvious misjudgment to be corrected and we want to see fairness and justice alive in the spirit of (the) Olympics,” a Korean statement said. The gymnastics federation suspended three judges for the mis-scoring. One was an American and another a Colombian who works in a gymnasium in Hamm’s home state of Ohio.
“FIG’s sanction against judges who have not judged correctly and made serious mistakes is not enough for us to accept,” the Koreans said.
“While misjudgments are being repeated continuously, athletes are being sacrificed continuously ... We want all athletes to be protected from this continued practice of misjudgment.”
A CAS spokesman said on Sunday the court did not normally adjudicate on disputes over a scoring issue. FIG admitted Yang had been unfairly docked a tenth of a point from his parallel bars routine during the all-round final, which left Hamm claiming the crown.
However, had Yang been credited with the correct difficulty score, the South Korean would have finished with a total of 57.874, 0.051 of a point ahead of his American rival. Without the mistake, Hamm would have earned silver and Yang’s teammate Kim Dae-eun would have dropped to bronze.
According to the rules of the federation, competitors can query the start value of a performance but it must be made no later than one rotation after the routine in question. FIG said the South Koreans failed to lodge a protest in time. However, the South Koreans state they noticed the error immediately but were asked to file their complaint after the competition had ended.
