"Gymnastics chief: Hamm is Olympic champ" -
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061017/ap_on_sp_ot/gym_worlds_grandi_2
[quote]
"If I were eating a plate of spaghetti with him, I'd say 'Paul Hamm is the Olympic champion,'" Bruno Grandi said Tuesday, twirling his hands as though he were spinning pasta with a fork......."There was a judging mistake," he said. "It was not his fault. For me, he won the
Olympic Games. It's finished. He won the gold medal."[/quote]
Hamm's gold medal:
[quote]"Wow," Hamm said when told of the statement in a phone interview. "Oh, no, no. It's never been spoken about publicly. I really can't be more pleased with it. It's amazing he feels that way. I'm shocked."
Two years ago, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) admitted a scoring error was made in the men's all-around in Athens but repeatedly said it would not change the results. The error came on South Korean Yang Tae-young's second-to-last event, and he wound up with the bronze.
The Koreans held up Grandi's comment that Hamm should share the medal as acknowledgment of a mistake, forcing the American to defend his gold all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Two more judging fiascos in Athens, involving Russian Alexei Nemov's routine on high bar finals and Canadian
Kyle Shewfelt's vault on the same day, reinforced FIG's problems.[/quote]
On the new code of points:
[quote]"I'm absolutely convinced I've done the right thing," Grandi said. "It's better for gymnastics, it's better for the athletes, it's better for the coaches."[/quote]
