THE o LIMP ics:
ATHENS, Greece - Paul Hamm's gold medal just lost its luster. A scoring mistake at the all-around gymnastics final cost South Korea's Yang Tae-young the gold that ended up going to Hamm, the International Gymnastics Federation ruled Saturday. Yang got the bronze instead.
Three judges were suspended, but the results will not be changed, the federation said. The South Korean Olympic team will ask the Court of Arbitration for Sports to determine if Yang deserves a gold medal.
"We want obvious mistakes to be corrected," said Jae Soon-yoo, an official with the South Korean delegation.
The error Wednesday cost Yang a tenth of a point on his parallel bars score that made the difference between third and first.
South Korea failed to lodge a protest during the event, so the scoring was not changed, said the federation, known as FIG. The South Koreans, however, said they did question the scoring as soon as the routine was over and were told by the judges to file a protest letter after the meet, Jae said.
If the mistake hadn't been made, Hamm would have won the silver and South Korea's Kim Dae-eun would have received the bronze instead of silver.
USA Gymnastics president Bob Colarossi compared the mistake to a bad call in football that wasn't discovered until after the game. He insisted the decision by gymnastics' governing body should not put an asterisk on Hamm's gold medal.
Hamm scored 9.837 on parallel bars and high bar to close the meet, rallying from 12th place to first and becoming the first American man to win the event.
"Paul Hamm's performance the other night was absolutely incredible," Colarossi said. "It's unfortunate the judges didn't have the right start value."
A start value is based on the difficulty of the routine. Yang received a start value of 9.9 on parallel bars, a tenth lower than he got for the same routine in team qualifying and finals.
After reviewing a tape of the all-around, federation officials determined Yang should have been awarded a start value of 10. With the extra 0.10, he would have finished with 57.874 points and defeated Hamm by 0.051.
Matthieu Reeb, general secretary of CAS, talked to the South Korean team about an appeal and expected it to be filed by Sunday. Still, he said it was unclear whether the court would hear the case.
"Our regular practice is that field of play decisions cannot be reviewed by CAS," Reeb said. "We'll see if the Korean delegation has other legal arguments to submit to the court. We haven't had a similar case involving a problem of judging or scoring."
Hamm, practicing Saturday for event finals, was not available for comment. He was asked Thursday about the judging and his close victory.
"I feel like I just barely edged them out," he said. "If you go back and look at the tapes, people can analyze it, and they'll all come to that conclusion, I think."
The case brought back memories of the figure skating scandal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games. A French judge said she was pressured by her federation's chief to favor the Russians in pairs over the Canadians. Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada were ultimately awarded duplicate golds.
In Athens, however, there were no signs of impropriety. The scoring error was made with one event left, and there was no way the judges could have known the significance of reducing Yang's start value on the parallel bars.
In another case at the 2002 Games, South Koreans fumed when short track speed skater Kim Dong-sung was disqualified in the 1,500-meter race, allowing American Apolo Anton Ohno to win the gold.
Gilbert Felli, the IOC's executive director for the Olympics, said the IOC had not been approached by the South Koreans or gymnastics officials. He said the figure skating case bore little resemblance to this one.
"In Salt Lake City it was a decision from the federation to change the ruling," he said. "The IOC never changed any results on its own. It's up to the federation if they feel the need to change something. It has to come from the federation."
Felli said the IOC would only consider changing results on its own "if there is an obvious manipulation, not a human mistake in judging."
Hamm won the meet over Kim by 0.012 in the closest men's all-around in Olympic history. Yang was 0.049 behind Hamm.
The South Korean delegation asked for a review of the scoring after the meet, and the gymnastics federation's executive committee met Friday to look at the tapes.
Messages left for the South Korean delegation by The Associated Press were not immediately returned.
A news release announcing the federation's decision said the rules "do not allow for a protest against judges' marks. The judges' marks have to be accepted as a final decision and cannot be changed."
Still, the suspensions were necessary to protect the integrity of the organization and "maintain and ensure the highest possible judging standard at the Olympic Games," the group said.
The federation did not release the names of the suspended judges, who will not be on the panel for event finals.
But Spain's Benjamin Bango and Columbia's Oscar Buitrago Reyes were responsible for determining the start values. America's George Beckstead was the panel chairman, and therefore had ultimate responsibility for all the judges. But because the other judges agreed on the 9.9 start value, Beckstead would have had no cause to step in.
Countries can complain about the scoring but only before the following rotation is over. After that, scores cannot be changed.
"Judges can make mistakes. That's human," federation spokesman Phillipe Silacci said Friday. "But it's like football. They cannot change the score once the game is over."
Comparing the o LIMP ics to Pro Football, yeah right. Oh wait a minute, could this be the first step in bringing pro Football into the winter o LIMP ics?
JonR
