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Sunday, August 22

Only one maneuver remains for Hamm: Give up the gold

ATHENS, Greece - U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm finds himself in an impossible situation at these Olympic Games. It is not his fault that three international judges made a mistake that cost Yang Tae-young of South Korea the gold medal - the medal that we now know was given incorrectly to Hamm.

It's not Hamm's fault, but it is his opportunity.

Hamm should give his gold medal to Yang.

I know how abrupt this sounds. All Hamm's hard work, all those hopes and dreams of someday winning an Olympic gold medal, and now he's supposed to just hand it over to an opponent he thought he defeated the other night?Well, yes.

To be sure, Hamm was magnificent last Wednesday night. His comeback was the stuff of Olympic legend. People who follow gymnastics will talk for decades about how he competed and how he won. He did nothing wrong and everything right.

But now the poor guy is embroiled in the biggest non-doping scandal of these Games. Officials of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) have ruled that Yang deserved one-tenth of a point more on his start value for his parallel bars routine. That one-tenth of a point added to Yang's score would have taken him from third to first in the men's individual all-around competition.

Yang would have won. Hamm would have earned the silver. Yang's countryman, Kim Dae-eun, would have been bumped to third.

Armed with this knowledge, FIG officials suspended the three judges, but did nothing about the result, leaving Hamm and Yang to twist in the wind. FIG's action is inexcusable. You acknowledge a mistake was made - and then you do nothing about the result?

Once again, we have living proof that the last amateurs left in Olympic sports are the people running them.

The inaction of the officials from FIG left the South Korean delegation with the possibility of seeking a satisfactory resolution of this mess from the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

As we await CAS' possible involvement, Hamm has been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to rise above his sport - all sport, actually - and do something that will endear him to just about everyone on the planet who is paying attention to the Olympics.

He would part with something extremely dear to him, the gold he fought so hard to win the other night, the gold he has dreamed of since he was a little kid in a gym in Waukesha, Wis. That's no small gesture. But precisely because the gold is so meaningful, Hamm would reap benefits he cannot yet imagine; addition by subtraction, if you will.

In the USA, in South Korea and around the world, people who couldn't care less about gymnastics would laud his dignity, sportsmanship and honor, especially because it represents such a polar opposite to the in-your-face arrogance and selfishness of so much of what we see in today's sports. Hamm would lose nothing, really, and would gain everything.

For instance, you don't think sponsors would be just a little bit interested in the guy who handed back his gold? In purely monetary terms - which I'm hoping isn't part of the discussion among Hamm, his family and his advisers - it's a no-brainer. And if that doesn't matter to him, if speeches and appearances and fame are not his thing, then his fallback position is something a mother would love: He gave up the gold because it simply was the right thing to do.

Hamm would no longer simply be a gymnast who won the gold, a fine achievement, but hardly a singular one. He would become a metaphor for everything that is good about sports and the Olympic Games.

Hamm stands at a crossroads. If he chooses to keep the gold, especially if Yang doesn't receive a second gold, here's the scenario: When the Olympic flame goes out Sunday and September rolls around and college and pro football begin and no one remembers who won what in Athens, Hamm's only distinction will be that of the man who won the controversial Olympic gold medal. Can you imagine the questions that will follow him wherever he goes?

But if he gives up the gold, he transcends sport. He instantly becomes a role model's role model. Move over, Michael Phelps.

All we're talking about is one good man making one simple, remarkable gesture.

I hope he does it.

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