My Final Words on Paul Hamm

  1. Paul Hamm won the Gold Medal fair and square. It doesn’t matter whether the coaches were [incorrectly] informed to protest later. Athletes and coaches are expected to know the rules.
  2. Paul Hamm should not feel compelled to return the Gold Medal. I’m sure that anyone competing in gymnastics at his level has been jobbed by the judges in the past. I would not blame him for feeling that this was karmic retribution. In addition, this is not as simple as exchanging medals with Yang - it needs to be a three way swap with all three medal winners agreeing to change their placing.
  3. Anyone in the FIG who suggests that Paul Hamm return his Gold Medal without working within the FIG to insure that a similar situation can never happen again is a Sniveling Weasel.
  4. Paul Hamm would not have won the Gold Medal without a scoring error. I do not believe that there would have been a different outcome if Hamm was aware of a different score for Yang. Hamm already knew that he was deep in the hole and he already knew that he had to let it all hang out.
  5. I wish that the FIG had the guts to admit that they had made a mistake and the will to correct it.