LONDON, 22 October 2004 — American gymnast Paul Hamm will keep his Olympic all-round gold medal after the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected an appeal from South Korea’s Yang Tae-young.
“This is obviously a great day for me,” Hamm told a teleconference yesterday. “The decision from CAS confirms what I always felt in my heart - that I was the champion that night and I am the Olympic all-round gold medalist.”
Hamm became the first American man to win the Games all-round title in Athens on Aug. 18. Just three days later it transpired he had been awarded the title due to a scoring error.
In one of the biggest controversies of the Athens Olympics, the governing body of gymnastics (FIG) ruled bronze medalist Yang should have been awarded the gold as he was incorrectly docked a 10th of a point from his parallel bars routine.
The FIG immediately suspended the three technical judges involved but refused to redistribute the medals.
Following a 12-hour hearing at its headquarters in Lausanne last month, CAS upheld the original result on Thursday to end almost two months of legal wrangling.
Jim Scherr, chief of sport performance at the US Olympic Committee, said it was “exceptionally pleased” about the decision, which he called the “best decision for Olympic sport”.
“The best decisions are always made on the field of play and should be left to judges on the field of play and stay there,” Scherr told the teleconference.
South Korea’s appeal had been based on the fact that had Yang been credited with the correct difficulty score, he would have finished with a total of 0.051 ahead of Hamm.
In a letter to Hamm, the FIG declared the South Korean was the “true winner of the all-round competition” and requested he surrender the gold medal to Yang as the “ultimate demonstration of fair play”.
The suggestion was angrily rejected by American Olympic chiefs, who accused the FIG of attempting to shift the blame for its own mistakes on to the shoulders of Hamm.
