ATHENS — The International Gymnastics Federation asked men's all-around winner Paul Hamm to give up his gold medal as a show of sportsmanship, a move the U.S. Olympic Committee on Friday called a "blatant and inappropriate" bid to "shift responsibility for its own mistakes."
In the latest twist in the 10-day-old controversy, Bruno Grandi, president of the gymnastics federation known as FIG, suggested in a letter to Hamm that giving the medal to South Korea's Yang Tae Young would be "recognised as the ultimate demonstration of Fair-play by the whole world."
Grandi sent the letter to Hamm late Thursday through the USOC, which refused to pass it along. Instead, Chief Executive Jim Scherr said in a letter of response that the USOC found Grandi's request "improper, outrageous and ... beyond the bounds of what is acceptable."
At a news conference Friday, USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth called Grandi's bid "deplorable."
The sharp rhetoric underscored the contentiousness that has marked the 2004 Games over the outcome of judged sports, such as gymnastics, while illuminating battles to come over how to repair the judging system.
To ensure public confidence, the standards in such sports must become more consistent and less susceptible to political pressures, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said Friday. "We are not going to give medals for so-called humanitarian or emotional reasons," he said.
The gymnastics protests are a legacy of the figure skating scandal at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, experts said, one that has fueled a new Olympic trend: post-event squabbling over gold medals that includes political arm-twisting, public-relations gambits and increased litigiousness.
In addition to disputes in both artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, the Athens Games have seen protests in equestrian, swimming, boxing, rowing and fencing. The gymnastics disputes, especially, have reopened old Olympic wounds about sports in which medalists are determined not by a clock or tape measure, but by judges. While many of these sports are dramatic and popular, they pose a threat to the Games' credibility when their judging is suspect, experts said.
In a historic first by an American, Hamm won gold in the all-around after a scoring blunder that seemingly cost Yang a crucial one-tenth of a point, relegating him to bronze.
