So, let me see if I have this correct:
Hamm keeping the gold is ok because:
a) It is payback for an unrelated incident, in a completely different sport, which occurred 16 years ago.
So if in the next Olympics, or World Championship, a flawed judging decision, whether deliberate or not, gives a South Korean the gold and an American the bronze, that will be OK.
b) The fact that there was an error in the start value of the South Korean that would have given him the gold medal is irrelevant to this forum. This is equivalent to giving 4 points for a try in Rugby, when in fact a try is worth 5 points, and then losing by one point.
c) How come this forum are not clamouring for a review of ANY of Hamm?s performances on ANY apparatus (including the vault, which probably should have given him a mark well below 9.00, not 9.1+) but believe that a review of ONLY the South Korean?s performance on ONLY ONE piece of apparatus, is fair.
I?m betting that if they reviewed the tapes of all other competitors there are plenty of mistakes that the judges failed to deduct for. That is why they have 6 judges who do the deducting...they come up with different points. If they didn?t you would only need one judge instead of six. You compensate with human error by excluding the highest and lowest mark out of these six, and even though the judges are after human, every competitor stands on level ground here.
However, when it comes to the two judges who decide on start values and the one judge who conforms it, it?s a different story?because even though start values are very critical in deciding an athlete?s final score, there is no system that makes up for that error (like the exclusion of the highest and lowest mark as mentioned above). Again, the judges are human and can make mistakes, but when a mistake is made with the starting value, it?s utterly decisive in the final result. That?s why the three judges (including an American and one who happens to be very close to Hamm by some coincidence) were suspended...they made an error where errors are not permitted, and a stupid one as well. This means that even before he started his routine, Yang had already lost one tenth of a point
And BTW, I was very very surprised that Hamm received 9.1+ for his vault, and I don't even want to think about the score Nemov got in the UB competition for a much superior performance. Perhaps we should review the scores for the individual apparatus as well. Maybe Paul Hamm would end up without any medals.
Finally, I don?t think anyone seriously expects Hamm to give up his gold. However, giving up the gold, and freely acknowledging that he may not be the only legitimate Olympic Champion are two very different things. Sharing an Olympic Gold does not detract in any way.
Hamm said stubbornly he truly believes in his heart that he is the Olympic all-around champion, and he did his job with class and integrity. Maybe he did, (I disagree with the class bit) but so did Yang. Is the South Korean any less deserving? Are his Olympic dreams any less vivid? Why should he be deprived of something that he truly earned?
Paul Hamm COULD have become a true champion, one remembered many, many years from now. However, by this time next year, he will be forgotten and ignored, as he seems more attached to his rapidly tarnishing gold medal than to a sense of fair play and ethics. He is to the Olympic Gold as Gollum was to the One Ring, and showing the same obnoxious traits.
During the trampoline world championships in 2001, the federation changed the results at the request of the gymnast Irina Karavaeva, after she learned that she had won the gold
because of a judging error. She gave up her gold medal. That is the measure of a champion.
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