Not as Good as Gold
We were among those thrilled at the astonishing come-from-behind heroics of the American gymnast Paul Hamm in the men's gymnastics all-around competition at the Olympic Games last week. Mr. Hamm, who had been favored to win a gold medal, looked as if he had blown it when he stumbled and fell off the mat in the vaulting event, dropping him to 12th place. But in the final two events, the parallel bars and the high bar, he earned stunning marks that, when coupled with faltering performances by some leading competitors, propelled him to the head of the pack. It was an inspiring story of an athlete who had triumphed over seemingly impossible odds. The only trouble was, it now turns out that he didn't really deserve the gold.
Through no fault of Mr. Hamm's, some judges assigned a wrong start value (maximum score possible) for a South Korean gymnast's routine on the parallel bars. That value is critical because it is the number from which any mistakes by the gymnast are deducted to get his final score. Had the judges assigned the correct value, Yang Tae Young would have won the gold medal and Mr. Hamm the silver.
The International Gymnastics Federation acknowledged that a scoring mistake had been made and suspended three judges because of it. But federation officials are letting the medal awards stand. They had an easy out in that the South Korean delegation failed to protest the scoring mistake at the time, as required, and instead waited until two days later, after the medals had actually been awarded.
Still, it reeks of injustice that an athlete should lose a medal based on what amounts to a numerical error. Mr. Hamm, still juiced up with his extraordinary performance, has declared himself the real champion of that night and has resisted calls that he voluntarily yield the gold.
Our own feeling - and we speak as people who found Mr. Hamm's performance under pressure extraordinary - is that his gold is already a bit tarnished. If he won't do the magnanimous thing, then the International Olympic Committee ought to find a way to award duplicate gold medals as South Korean officials have suggested.
NY Times
Through no fault of Mr. Hamm's, some judges assigned a wrong start value (maximum score possible) for a South Korean gymnast's routine on the parallel bars. That value is critical because it is the number from which any mistakes by the gymnast are deducted to get his final score. Had the judges assigned the correct value, Yang Tae Young would have won the gold medal and Mr. Hamm the silver.
The International Gymnastics Federation acknowledged that a scoring mistake had been made and suspended three judges because of it. But federation officials are letting the medal awards stand. They had an easy out in that the South Korean delegation failed to protest the scoring mistake at the time, as required, and instead waited until two days later, after the medals had actually been awarded.
Still, it reeks of injustice that an athlete should lose a medal based on what amounts to a numerical error. Mr. Hamm, still juiced up with his extraordinary performance, has declared himself the real champion of that night and has resisted calls that he voluntarily yield the gold.
Our own feeling - and we speak as people who found Mr. Hamm's performance under pressure extraordinary - is that his gold is already a bit tarnished. If he won't do the magnanimous thing, then the International Olympic Committee ought to find a way to award duplicate gold medals as South Korean officials have suggested.
NY Times
posted by R7 | 8/24/2004 01:09:00 PM
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