Newz Forum: OLYMPICS: South Korea protests Hamm's all-around gold

The International Gymnastics Federation met Friday to review South Korea's protest of the score for Yang Tae-young in the all-around that left him with the bronze medal and gave American Paul Hamm the gold.

No matter what the result, though, scores cannot be reversed and Hamm's medal cannot be taken away, FIG spokesman Philippe Silacci said. He said FIG officials were reviewing tapes from Wednesday's all-around to determine whether judges should be sanctioned.

Hamm won Wednesday night's meet with a score of 57.823, 0.012 points better than South Korea's Kim Dae-eun in the closest all-around finish in Olympic history. Yang finished third with a score of 57.774.

South Korea's gymnastics federation says Yang's parallel bars routine received a start value of 10 in team preliminaries and finals, but only a 9.9 for the same set in the all-around.

Had Yang received the extra tenth of a point, he would have finished first.

"Judges can make mistakes. That's human," Silacci said. "But it's like football. They cannot change the score once the game is over."

Silacci said reviews like this normally come weeks or months after the competition. But this "extraordinary meeting" was being held quickly so that, if needed, judges could be sanctioned before Monday's parallel bars event final.