GYMNASTICS Gold medal in arbitrators' hands

They will decide within two weeks if Paul Hamm will retain his gold medal.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The future of Paul Hamm's gold medal has nothing to do with tumbles and flips, and everything to do with the judgment of three arbitrators.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport held an 111/2-hour hearing Monday to determine whether Hamm again should be declared the winner of the Olympic gymnastics all-around competition, or the victory should go to Yang Tae-young of South Korea.
Within the next two weeks, the arbitrators will take the testimony from the hearing in Lausanne, Switzerland, make their ruling and finalize the result of the first Olympic gymnastics meet that couldn't get settled in the gym.
"Everything went very smoothly," Hamm said in a teleconference after the courtroom hearing. "It was a very fair hearing and everyone got the chance to say what they thought.
"If they determine by the rules of gymnastics I should give back my medal, I will."
Quite an odyssey
It has been quite an odyssey for Hamm and Yang, who was wrongly docked 0.1 points for the level of difficulty of his parallel bars routine in the all-around. He ended up with the bronze, 0.049 points behind Hamm.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) reviewed the meet the next day and suspended the judges, admitting a mistake and adding fuel to the South Korean protest.
Despite the suspensions, officials for the federation said repeatedly they wouldn't change the results because the South Koreans didn't file a protest in time.
FIG president Bruno Grandi confused the issue, however, when he wrote a letter to Hamm asking him to surrender the gold medal voluntarily. In the letter, Grandi wrote, "The true winner of the all-around competition is Yang Tae-young."
Buoyed by that statement, the South Koreans brought the case to CAS -- the sports world's highest court and final authority on Olympic matters -- and argued that had Yang received that extra tenth, he would have won the meet by 0.051.
No assumption, guarantee
Arguing on Hamm's behalf, U.S. Olympic Committee attorney Jeff Benz said there was no way to assume Yang would have won, because there was one event left after the parallel bars and there was no guarantee everything would have turned out the same.
He also argued that "field of play" decisions -- judgment calls by officials during competitions -- were not subject to review by CAS, and that the South Koreans didn't file their appeal until it was too late to change the result.
"The issue is whether this affected the result," CAS general secretary Matthieu Reeb said.
The South Korean delegation declined comment after the hearing.
About 40 people speaking no fewer than seven languages were in the courtroom. The arguments were heard by three arbitrators -- one each from Germany, Kenya and Britain. Reeb said the ruling was expected within two weeks.