severoon's Journal: Should Paul Hamm Give Back the Gold?

I've got Olympic fever this year for some reason. I've never really been into the Olympics that much, or watching sports in general, for that matter. This year, however, is the first year that the Olympics has occurred while I was in possession of a TiVo. This amazing device allows me to watch about 8 hours of Olympic coverage in about 100 minutes (I timed it). And yes, this includes the events, the post-event interviews where reporters require long-winded responses to questions while an athlete that's just completed a 5000m race struggles to catch their breath, as well as all of the backstories--which, to NBC's credit, has been dramatically and admirably scaled back this year in favor of broadcasting, um, the Olympics.

Being interested in the Olympics this year makes me "de facto" interested in the gymnastic, aquatic, and track and field events, as these three groupings make up probably more than 75% of the Olympic broadcasts in America. (By the way, what do I have to do to see complete coverage of Olympic ping pong? Move to China?)

Having said that, this controversy over American Paul Hamm's gymnastics all-around gold just won't go away.

To give some background on the issue, in the men's gymnastic all-around, South Korean Yang Tae Young's parallel bars routine was incorrectly given a starting value of 9.9 when it apparently actually deserved a starting value of 10.0, reducing his score in that rotation of the event by 0.1 of a point unfairly. After the final event was over in the all-around competition and the scores were tallied, that 0.1 from the parallel bar routine was enough to knock him from gold medal position to bronze.

But this is not the whole story, and everyone from the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), though at loggerheads over how the issue should be handled, seems to be ignoring the fact that Mr. Hamm does indeed deserve the gold medal.

This is true for a number of rule and policy reasons binding on the competition:

1. If the South Koreans wanted to dispute the judges' scoring of the parallel bars, they must file a complaint before the end of that rotation within the all-around event. They did not.

   ...FIG rules state that any protest must be filed before the end of a rotation -- in this case, the parallel bars -- which the Koreans failed to do. [source]

2. The judges only discovered their error after review of the videotape, which is not allowed in judging Olympic gymnastics events:

   "The people I'm a little bit upset with is the FIG because this matter should have never even come up," Hamm said. "Reviewing videotape isn't even allowed in the rules. Rules can't be changed after the competition is over. Right now, I personally feel I shouldn't even be dealing with this." [source]

3. The rules also state that Yang Tae Young does not meet the conditions necessary to lodge a request for a second gold medal:

   Bruno Grandi, president of the International Gymnastics Federation, told The Associated Press on Monday night that rules prevent him from asking for another gold medal to make up for the scoring error that cost Yang Tae-young the all-around title.

   "I don't have the possibility to change it," Grandi told the AP. "Our rules don't allow it." [source]

   On top of this, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogges told Bob Costas that current IOC policy, since the judging scandal in the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics, is that medals standings cannot be changed after they the medals have already been awarded unless judging is found to be tainted or doping has occurred. Specifically, duplicate medals will only be given in the former case of corrupt judging.

Ok, so all of the rules and regulations of the sport seem to be falling down on the side of Paul Hamm, which means he officially gets to keep his gold medal without question. But we all know he's not the better athlete, and if the judging was flawless the gold would really have gone to Yang Tae Young, right?

Wrong. And I quote:

So why not a second gold medal [for Tang Tae Young]? Why not accommodate the upset Koreans and send everyone home happy? Well for one thing, you can make a pretty good case that, if you're going to go to the videotape, Yang shouldn't have won.

Yes, the videotape of the parallel bars showed the judges erred by assigning a 9.9 start value. But it showed something else, too. In the course of his routine, Yang had four holds on the bar, when the rules allow for a maximum of three. The deduction for that mistake? Two-tenths of a point.

The judges missed it.

It is not enough to say Paul Hamm should keep his gold medal. He's a deserving champion. Period. [source]

After knowing this, doesn't the FIG's and South Korea's calls for Hamm to give his gold to Yang Tae Young in the name of sportsmanship seem a bit sore loser-ish? I say Yang Tae Young should file an official request to have his true scoring--which nets him one-tenth of a point less than he was awarded--recorded in the history books. This would for once and for all remove all hint of impropriety from Hamm's accomplishment.

Now that would be a shining example of sportmanship.