2004 OLYMPIC GAMES - Athens, Greece Aug. 13 - 29

[BullNBear52]

Controversy Is Slowly Receding
By HARVEY ARATON

Published: August 31, 2004


ncasville, Conn.

IF you had to be an Olympic victim, there would be worse identities to assume than Paul Hamm's. Nancy Kerrigan comes immediately to mind. That poor Brazilian marathoner, whose gold-medal bid was derailed Sunday by some goon in the crowd. For long-lasting misery, dial up any member of the 1972 United States men's basketball team.

Advertisement


Hamm may have had some unnecessarily stressful days over in Athens, but by last week, he and his twin brother, Morgan, were getting a rare comfy ride in business class back to the United States courtesy of the "Late Show With David Letterman." In the airport, on the street, people recognized them from their starring roles in NBC's just-concluded soap opera, and showered Paul, in particular, with sage Noo Yawk advice, Don't you give back that medal!

Hamm began making the talk-show rounds to explain why he wouldn't and guess what shocking news he discovered? He was preaching to a star-spangled congregation that didn't know the name of the South Korean opponent who had lost out to him on a technicality any more than it understood how to score a gymnastics meet.

"People seemed to have heard the whole story, and they've made up their minds that Paul should keep the gold medal," Hamm said yesterday, in the third-person manner of a newly minted news media sensation.

The men's all-around gymnastics gold medal that he won with some undisputed help from the judges - and isn't surrendering to the spineless suits of the International Gymnastics Federation - is already in what Hamm called "a safe place." Under the heat of my aggressive interviewing, he revealed that place to be Columbus, Ohio, where he will be attending Ohio State after the Rock 'n' Roll Gymnastics Tour that begins here tonight at the Mohegan Sun Arena.

In other words, time to cash in on the glitter and the gold before an American sporting public that has the attention span of a toddler in a toy store forgets this latest cheesy Olympic controversy, or which Hamm is which.

All around New York and the country, fans were fast moving on from the Olympic morality play yesterday, snapping back to the less ambiguous values of a culture that is defined by money, not medals. Balls are top-spinning again at the National Tennis Center. Uneasiness is settling into the Bronx with the Red Sox gaining fast on the Yankees. Kurt Warner, not Eli Manning, is preparing for the Giants' opening-day start at quarterback in Philadelphia. Out West, a baseball Giant, Barry Bonds, closes in on 700 home runs.

Controversy? We've got Kobe Bryant going on trial for sexual assault, for goodness sake. So have a nice life, Bruno Grandi.

Grandi is the president of the gymnastic federation that waited a week to weigh in on the Hamm fiasco before delivering a letter to the United States Olympic Committee, addressed to Hamm, suggesting he sacrifice gold for silver. The defiant American officials never passed along the letter, though Hamm said he had had it read to him over the telephone.

The request might have been more reasonable had Grandi's group made it immediately, and quietly. Even Hamm conceded yesterday that he initially pondered making what would have resonated worldwide as a heartfelt sporting gesture.

Not now, though, his position understandably having hardened with the passage of time. In the Olympic Village, athletes from everywhere - whose careers are governed by the kind of meet rules that the South Koreans failed to follow - encouraged Hamm to stand firm, he said . He also reminded himself of how the psychology of the competition would have changed had the protest been immediately lodged. And what altogether convinced him that there could be no reinterpretation of the scoring was the opinion passed along to him by gymnastic insiders that the South Korean had benefited in another part of the scoring where he might have lost two-tenths of a point and finished fourth.

"You can't look at it one way,' Hamm said.

Of course, people always have and always will, because it wouldn't be the Olympics without partisanship loosely related to politics. If Hamm had lost on the same technicality, or had been stripped of his gold by the International Olympic Committee, you can bet the same cable news cavalry that took up the cause of the Canadian figure skaters in Salt Lake City would have docked the Swift boat veterans and gone off on another Olympic mission to search and destroy.

As it's turned out, the gymnastics federation only managed to make the winner, Hamm, as sympathetic as the South Korean, extending the shelf life of the story and assisting Hamm & Company to maintain their post-Olympics box-office buzz. The South Koreans are appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but it's his understanding that the court only intercedes on cases of impropriety and doping. He isn't sweating this anymore. He can laugh about his so-called misfortune.

"We need to lighten up about the situation a little bit," Hamm said. "We're at the point where we want to make T-shirts that say something like, 'Paul Hamm gave me the gold medal.' ' Just know they won't be on sale in Seoul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/31/sports/olympics/31araton.html