30. August 2004  
Athens, Seoul  
Artistic Gymnastics

South Korea raises objection at the Int. Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS)

Yang, Tae Young (KOR)

South Korea protests- FIG mediates - IOC maintains a low profile

WIth a one-week delay the leaders of the South Korean delegation have now addressed to the International Court of Arbitration for Sports CAS. They demand the gold-medal in the gymnastics all-around final for Yang Tae Young.
With this raising of an objection the Korean delegation wants to prevent a decision of the judges which according to them was obviously wrong...
The Asians raised the protest against the all-around score of Yangs routine on parallel bars. The head judge as well as the two A-judges gave a start value of 9.9 for this routine. As meanhwile confirmed by the FIG however the correct start value for the routine would have been 10.0.
Exactly this one tenth was missing the third-ranked South Korean to become Olympic Champion in front of Paul Hamm (USA) and his team mate from Korea Kim Dae Eun.
The FIG suspended the responsible judges George Beckstead (USA), Benjamin Bango (ESP) and Oscar Buitrago Reyes (COL) but didn’t change the score. In an official statement the FIG mentioned that changing the score would be against their rules: Scores are fact decisions.
FIG-president Bruno Grandi, Member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), then sent a letter to Hamm addressing to the “Fairness of an Olympic Champion” and asking him to think about handing over his gold medal. The US federation criticised this as “outrageous request'.
The IOC decided to maintain a low profile on this issue.
IOC- president Jacques Rogge confirmed that the IOG doesn’t want to interfere in this issue. This was clearly stated in letters from the IOC to the concerned National Olympic Committees as well as to the FIG.
A CAS-spokesman mentioned that the decision might take longer than 24 hours due to the complex technical checking of the decision.