Judges suspended but Hamm keeps gold

By JILL LIEBER

USA TODAY

ATHENS, Greece - The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) admitted Saturday an error was made in the scoring of the men's all-around, but emphasized it never considered taking away the gold medal from American Paul Hamm or awarding a second gold medal to Korea's Yang Tae-young, who finished third.

Instead, the results from Wednesday's event will stand.

Three judges were suspended "pending inquiry," according to FIG spokesperson Philippe Silacci.

Hamm won the gold in dramatic fashion on the final event by the closest ever margin of .012 over Korea's Kim Dae-eun. A protest was lodged over the results of Yang's parallel bar scoring because two judges awarded him an incorrect start value.

Silacci told USA TODAY the sanctioned judges are American George Beckstead, FIG technical director of parallel bars, who oversaw the event, Spain's Benjamin Bango and Colombia's Oscar Buitrago Reyes, who were responsible for setting the start values of the parallel bars routines. A start value is the maximum number of points a gymnast can be awarded on a certain routine based on the degree of difficulty of his elements. Points are then subtracted for mistakes, leading to a final score.

FIG has removed the three judges from the individual event finals Sunday and Monday nights. Further sanctions are pending upon review of the entire Olympic gymnastics competition, which is common procedure.

Silacci added FIG does not suspect any of the judges cheated. "It's an honest mistake," Silacci said. "If somebody makes a mistake, which can happen every day, because you and me we are human, we have to take sanction."Upon learning the ruling Saturday afternoon, the Koreans faxed an appeal to the International Olympic Committee but were denied. They plan to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports in the next day or two.

"During the competition, one of the Korean judges, Kim Dong Min, raised an objection to the head judge," said Korean spokeswoman Jae Soon Yoo. "Right after the competition, our coach, Lee Joo Hyung, also raised objections. The judges admitted there was a mistake. They advised us to write a letter to the technical delegates.

"After we got back to the Olympic Village, we sent a letter by fax to FIG president Bruno Grandi. They said they were sorry, but judges' final decisions can't be changed. Saturday, we sent a letter by fax to the IOC. They answered this is something that must be judged by FIG. They advised us to initiate an appeal with FIG. But we'd already heard from FIG that judges' final decisions can't be changed. So, we are preparing an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports.''