Hamm Asked to Give Up Gold

The International Gymnastics Federation asked men’s all-around winner Paul Hamm to give up his gold medal as a show of sportsmanship, a move the U.S. Olympic Committee on Friday called a “blatant and inappropriate” bid to “shift responsibility for its own mistakes.”

In the latest twist in the 10-day-old controversy, Bruno Grandi, president of the gymnastics federation known as FIG, suggested in a letter to Hamm that giving the medal to South Korea’s Yang Tae Young would be “recognised as the ultimate demonstration of Fair-play by the whole world.”

Grandi sent the letter to Hamm late Thursday through the USOC, which refused to pass it along. Instead, Chief Executive Jim Scherr said in a letter of response that the USOC found Grandi’s request “improper, outrageous and ... beyond the bounds of what is acceptable.”

At a news conference Friday, USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth called Grandi’s bid “deplorable.”

The sharp rhetoric underscored the contentiousness that has marked the 2004 Games over the outcome of judged sports, such as gymnastics, while illuminating battles to come over how to repair the judging system.

To ensure public confidence, the standards in such sports must become more consistent and less susceptible to political pressures, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Friday. “We are not going to give medals for so-called humanitarian or emotional reasons,” he said.

The gymnastics protests are a legacy of the figure skating scandal at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, experts said, one that has fueled a new Olympic trend: post-event squabbling over gold medals that includes political arm-twisting, public-relations gambits and increased litigiousness.

In addition to disputes in both artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, the Athens Games have seen protests in equestrian, swimming, boxing, rowing and fencing. The gymnastics disputes, especially, have reopened old Olympic wounds about sports in which medalists are determined not by a clock or tape measure, but by judges. While many of these sports are dramatic and popular, they pose a threat to the Games’ credibility when their judging is suspect, experts said.

In a historic first by an American, Hamm won gold in the all-around after a scoring blunder that seemingly cost Yang a crucial one-tenth of a point, relegating him to bronze.

South Korean officials said this week they intended to seek a duplicate gold medal for Yang through an international tribunal, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, probably after the Games. Matthieu Reeb, the panel’s general secretary, said late Friday that no case had been filed.

Other gymnastics protests here have involved Canadian, Russian, Greek and Bulgarian athletes -- and, in rhythmic gymnastics, American Mary Sanders. U.S. officials filed a protest Thursday over what they considered unjustifiably low scores for her hoop routine, but the federation turned it down Friday.

Hamm, already back in the United States, has said he has no intention of giving up his medal unless the federation orders him to do so. He declined to comment Friday.

In a letter delivered Thursday evening Athens time, Grandi urged Hamm to return the medal and declared Yang the “true winner.”

Ueberroth sharply criticized Grandi’s effort. “I don’t know of any comparison in any sport, anywhere,” he said, “where you crown an athlete, crown a team and then say, ‘Oh, that was a mistake. Would you fix this for us?’ ”

In a second letter, delivered Friday afternoon, Grandi said: “Whether or not Paul wishes to return his medal depends on his own decision. We will not put pressure on him to influence his decision.”

Referring to Hamm, Grandi told Associated Press: “There is no doubt he has won the medal. He deserves the medal and the ranking is clear.... I respect totally Paul Hamm and all the decisions he makes. If he says give back the medal, I respect it. Don’t give back the medal, I respect the decision. He is not responsible for anything.”

The USOC said it considered the case closed, based on FIG’s announcement last Saturday that the scores could not be changed.

Earlier this week, the USOC had indicated a willingness to consider supporting a Korean bid for a second gold medal, but that was no longer an option Friday because of FIG’s “most recent and unacceptable maneuver,” the USOC said.

Scherr, meanwhile, said he regretted not being more publicly supportive of Hamm earlier in the controversy.

“We were at fault for not more strongly, more directly, showing our support for Paul,” he said.

U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a Republican from Wisconsin, Hamm’s home state, said the committee was weighing a September hearing to “ensure no future athlete is ever put in the unfair position” Hamm was placed in.

Sometime after the Athens Games, the IOC intends to review all 28 Summer Games sports. Rogge said Friday that gymnastics had agreed to revise its rules and cited skating’s turn to a computerized scoring system after Salt Lake city as noteworthy.

John MacAloon, a University of Chicago professor and an Olympics expert, said the competence of Olympic judges themselves should also be examined, noting that they are volunteers -- many of them former competitors with extensive ties in their sports’ social web.

The Summer Games feature judges in boxing, diving, equestrian, gymnastics, judo, taekwondo and synchronized swimming. Without reform, MacAloon said, “There’s a long-term risk one or another of these judged sports could go down.”

Alex Gilady of Israel, an IOC member since 1994, said the judging here had “not [been] up to the Olympic standard. Not only the athletes should have the highest quality. Everyone should be, including judges.”

Experts also pointed to a trend here for delegations to quickly turn to their lawyers when they feel judges have blown a decisive call.

“I am looking for the best lawyer in the world,” B.J. Shin, chief of the Korean delegation, said in announcing plans to appeal the judging of the men’s all-around to CAS.

The Olympics have seen scrutiny of judged sports before -- in particular, boxing and synchronized swimming in the Summer Games, figure skating and short-track speedskating in the Winter Olympics.

The controversies here suggest that advocacy on behalf of an aggrieved athlete or delegation has escalated, thanks to the 2002 scandal.

“The Salt Lake episode in figure skating pushed the bar in a way that is not particularly desirous. But there we have it,” said Bob Barney, founding director of the International Center for Olympic Studies at Canada’s University of Western Ontario.

The duplicate medals in 2002 were awarded after a French judge said she had been pressured by the French skating federation to favor the Russians.

Rogge said Friday that such misconduct marked the key distinction between the judging cases in Athens and the Salt Lake skating scandal.

“The IOC is very consistent in its position: As long as the federation gives a result, and as long as there is no proof of manipulation or corruption, we will accept the result,” he said.

“We accept that human error is unavoidable in judging and refereeing.”