I think I would cough it up and take the silver with pride.
I’m certainly not Hamm. But, if I were ME and had the same set of circumstances happen, I could not accept the gold, and silver would be what I would rather have. Better in the future to look at the silver medal with no “buts” than to have the gold.
Hard to say, w/o actually being in that situation.
Sounds like they are considering giving the Korean guy a ‘duplicate’ gold medal.
I probably would not give it back. I would definitely not give it back before the CAS made it’s decision about whether or not to give a duplicate to the S. Korean.
Definately give the gold back 
and Claim the silver 
And if they wouldn’t take it back I’d take my gold medal and paint it silver.
I would have to give it back. I was just telling the wife that I would queitly make my way over to the Koreans and offer to trade it for the Silver.
From a purely selfish point of view, I think he would make more money in endorsements and receive more accolades if he traded medals. If he keeps it he will be forever remembered as the guy who won on a scoring error.
This certainly isn’t an example of Olympic-caliber, but, last year, I beat my nemesis in a race where he had a broken chain. I had never beat him before. It was the best race I’d had in Triathlon in my life, but, I don’t know if I would have won had he not had a mechanical problem. I felt badly for him, and when I think about that race it is done remembering his bad fortune, not my PR, and the lingering question of “if he had not broken down”.
This year, I beat him in fair and square (even though I was slower overall than last year)…but, I’ll always remember the first race I beat him without incident as the “real” first time I beat him.
I’d definitely give the gold medal to the South Korean. That doesn’t mean Mr. Hamm should do that, it’s just what I’d have to do for my own peace of mind. I won’t hold it against him if he doesn’t give it back, but, I’ll certainly think more highly of him if he does give it back.
Agreed I wouldn’t hold it against him either
.
The thing is, we can’t predict what would have happened if the scoring were correct. He was the final competitor, so maybe if he knew the correct score he needed, he would have done it. Maybe he would have responded and done better, or changed his routine, etc. Or perhaps he would have screwed up.
Say you are in a TT ride, and was you needed to beat a certain time to win. So you do it by 2 seconds, then later somebody tells you the officials screwed up and were off by 5 seconds, so you missed it. You’d probably scream bloody murder, as knowing what you needed to do might have made the difference. This isn’t the greatest analogy but is as close as I can come up with now.
The olympics are only held once in four years. Hamm would have to wait four more years to “redeem” his performance. It would be different if he could compete a half dozen times every year - that case, sure, take a silver and wait a few weeks to compete again.
Anyway, the tragedy here is how scoring errors like this can occur at the highest level of competition. I mean really, how in heck does this slip by?!
I don’t disagree with you at all. But my point is despite everything, I think he would make more money and garnish higher praise if he gave the medal up. Does that mean I would like to see him lose his medal? No. However I think he would be the star of the Olympics if he showed the heart to give a medal up. But in no way do I disrepect him for keeping it.
I’d give it to the South Korean as a lesson for my children.
This is a strange situation, kind of reminds me of that canadian figure skating problem from the winter olympics because of the awful judging. I don’t remember anything about that other couple giving back their medal and they weren’t destroyed in the media for it. I think, heck, he should keep the thing, it’s bad enough the whole event was tarnished. It doesn’t take away that no one really knows what would have happened were the whole event were scored properly.
Keep it.
Everyone who has been competitive in anything recalls a situation where a bad call may have altered the outcome. Bad calls are a part of sports. That is the reality of the situation. Sometimes you get the breaks, sometimes you don’t. It was not Hamm’s fault that the judge’s screwed up. It was not Hamm’s fault that the S. Korean team did not catch the error within the time to correct it.
Does anyone think that Mary Lou Retton (sp) should give back her '84 medals because the east block countries, the class of the sport at the time, boycotted? Are the medals tainted? No.
Hamm’s medal will not be tainted. In 6 months the controversey will be forgotten by most everyone. How does he feel about it? Has he given any interviews on the issue yet?
Hamm speaks:
NBCSports.com news services
Updated: 6:08 p.m. ET Aug. 22, 2004
ATHENS, Greece - Tainted gold? Paul Hamm certainly doesn’t think so. In fact, he’s downright angry his Olympic all-around gymnastics title is being disputed at all.
“I shouldn’t even be dealing with this,” Hamm said Sunday after failing to win medals in event finals for pommel horse and floor exercise.
Hamm simply wants the dispute to be over. He doesn’t feel his gold medal has been marred.
“It would have been nice to not have to deal with it,” he said. “I’m glad I’m able to clear the air here and make sure everyone in the U.S. understands that I’m not a silver medalist. I’m a gold medalist, and once the meet is over, it’s over.”
“It’s like going back and saying you saw a holding call in the third quarter of a football game that changed the result,” Avery said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.
Hamm and his coach, Miles Avery, said they looked at Yang’s routine and saw a place where he should have received a 0.2-point deduction that the judges didn’t take."
So if you take the perspective that all mistakes should be corrected after the fact, the correct individual won.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA… you guys are hilarious. Here’s what i, and most people, would ACTUALLY do. Keep the gold, and rationalize in my head on how i somehow earned it.
I’d keep the gold. The error happened two (or one?) rotations before the competition ended. That leaves too many variables based on that alternate scoring to say for certain what would have happened. If you want to award a second gold to Yang, I won’t argue. But don’t discount the fact that I (Hamm) rose to the situation presented me.
Keep the gold, and rationalize in my head on how i somehow earned it.
Sounds like that’s what Hamm’s going to do. I’ve definitely soured on the guy after hearing his response. Or it could be because of that 15 yr old girl voice he has 
Francois,
I usually agree with or at least can see your side of most issues on this forum, but here, I’m having trouble. First, the disqualification in the 200m backstroke was different. Peirsol clearly won by a good bit, and the judges issue was resolved in Peirsol’s favor. Plus, swimming allows for the results to be changed and appealed. Second, I didn’t hear anyone say Yang’s a fraud. He is unlucky, and the judges and his coaches didn’t do him right. That’s not Hamm’s fault. You assuming things would be different if the situation is reversed is based on what? Third, Hamm is still in the middle of his meet. He’s still got more competition, and instead of being able to focus on that, he is being hounded by reporters asking him about this. He’s 22, the World Champion, and busted his ass to win. Was his statement a little snippy? Sure. He probably could have handled it better. But what you have is an extraordinary situation in which two separate judges independently made the same mistake, the S. Koreans didn’t do what they needed to do to assure success, the IOC took the unheard of action of looking at video of the routine afterward, and after all that, the rules still state that you can’t change the result. I’m sure he’s under a little bit of pressure. With some distance, I hope he would make a better statement.
If anyone wants to read a real statement of bad sportsmanship, try this one. Having met Khorkina before, I was not surprised.