Should Paul Hamm Relinquish the AA Gold Medal?

The first thing that popped in my head was he should give the medal back. I would have if I was in his shoes but then that's just me. However, after thinking about it further, I changed my mind. It's not his fault the judges messed up. Plus I'm annoyed at S.Korea for not addressing it in a timely manner. If they had, the whole mess would have been fixed instead of turning into a fiasco as it did. So I blame the judges and S.Korea for not fulfilling their responsibility. The judges for not doing their jobs in the first place and when they didn't, for S.Korea not protesting immediately to rectify the situation.

Better Late than, Never

However, Yes he should But, it is too late now. Once he found out that the judges made a mistake regardless of the timing of it. He should have been the bigger person & gave the Medal back. He would have transended the game itself by doing a selfless act like that. He would have stolen the games away from Michael Phelps. But, he wanted to keep the gold medal that he did not win. But, when he decided to keep that gold medal. That is all he got. Where are his endorsements at? Nowhere to be found. He became the Ugly American. He has his Gold Medal & that is it. & the Excuse about the protest coming too late is, LAME.

He wanted the Gold Medal, now he has it. & That is all he will receive. & He isn't going to get any slack fromt he judges come next season. Becareful, what you wish for, you just make get it.

The incident with Paul Hamm and the Gymnastics in Athens and the Figure Skating controversy in Salt Lake has now forced (at least they should have) the IOC to deal head on with officiating incompetence and malfeasance at its upcoming session in Singapore in early July of next year.

Although the IOC cannot make specific rules for any one international federation, it can demand that the international federations (and their subordinate federations) have measures in place that ensure accomplishment of given goals. Will the IOC step up to the plate and demand that all international federations (and their subordinate national federations) put effective measures in place that will ensure officiating competency and integrity (along with severe consequences for incompetency and malfeasance) before that sport's next scheduled Olympiad? All international federations (and their subordinate national federations) do have measures in place for the calling of special meetings to take care of emergencies and, in many cases, such a demand would constitute an "emergency," so there is no legitimate excuse for any federation not getting such a task done in time for their next Olympiad.

Financial pressure from commercial sponsors can also be brought to bear as well...to wit "get those measures passed or no money." That would probably be the most effective. Think about it.

They're showing gymnastics with Paul Hamm and Carly Patterson on Fox TV right now.

MM

a last hurrah for this thread... Paul Hamm WON the gold medal outright. According to NBC sports analysis, upon reviewing the tapes of the Korean team for all their routines it was found that the gymnast in question recieved bonus points on another routine that he should not have and also had deductions that weren't taken in another routine. Finding: The gymnast would have place EXACTLY in the same order if all mistakes were corrected.

It's been said all along that 1) there was a procedure in place for a protest and the Koreans did not utilize it until after it was too late. If you are going to compete in the Olympics, you better darn well have a coach that knows ALL the rules before the place leaves the ground of your country. 2) the ONLY fair way I can see for the results to be officially changed was if ALL (that's right, each and EVERY routine) the routines were rejudged by video and the entire competition "rerun."

SLC Ice Skating was a case of colusion and compromise that should yield lifetime bans on judges. In the case of the Athens Olympics, only judges making "human error" mistakes was the cause of the whole mess. FS offers no redress for this kind of behavior, in gymnastics there is and it was not followed by the people it was intended to protect.

Though I've heard people talk about the skating and the "way things should have turned out"...Sarah, Sasha, Irina, and Michelle didn't ask for replays of "who lipped there lutz, who was underrotated, who pitched forward and had ugly runout and who's fall was worse and worthy of that kind of deductions. So with these ladies in mind, I would advise the Korean Gymnastics Associatation to read the rules better and make sure that if they are going to call for a realighnment of medals that they look at the tape first. I would be personally embarrassed if I said that I won because my routine was undermarked and then discovered that I should have had more deductions taken away from another routine than had points added to a routine I was complaining about in the first place. Oh, and in my humble opinion, I would feel the same way had one of the Russians, one of the Chinese, or one of the Romanians had been in Paul Hamms' place. I'm glad that Hamm chose to keep the medal, after all he won it. He didn't colude with judges, he didn't politic, he just hit his routines and let the gymnastics speak for itself. bye bye Athens