I love the Olympics - or rather, certain events within the Olympics and gymnastics is one of them. I was rootin’ for the USA all the way (and at some points, the Korean and Chinese cuz they are just really awesome gymnasts).

I will admit, I had just missed the whole hubbub with the Paul Hamm thing cuz I took a potty break at the wrong time - I came back to find the anchorman doing an interview with Hamm and asking questions like “so are you going to give the medal back?” (my initial thought was…whaaaaa?!? what the hell did I miss?!?)

Thank you to this article for clearing it up for me…

Apparently, the fine judges at the Olympics did not credit the Korean gymnast Yang Jae-young with the proper difficulty rating (they credited him with 9.9 instead of 10.0) and had they credited him properly, he would have beaten Hamm by 0.051 (51 thousandths of a point), but Hamm refuses to give the medal back b/c it’s a technicality - the Koreans failed to lodge their complaint in a reasonable amount of time (well - the Olympics ended on Sunday night…it’s not like they waited a year or anything - and hell, they probably didn’t even catch it until someone asked “hey, how come is says 9.9 instead of 10.0?”).

Well - now it’s time for my opinion - 1. I don’t like to lay blame here, but it was an error on the judge’s part…when the judges go wrong, how are we to ever trust them again? 2. Had things been properly done, Yang would have won the medal fair and square (albeit mighty close) 3. As much as it would pain me to say - Hamm would have received silver.

The solution, to my simple mind, seems pretty damn obvious - the Olympics committee should just award Yang Jae-young a gold medal. Pretend they tied and be done with it. It’s mighty clear that the only way Paul Hamm is giving up his gold is if it’s pried from his cold dead hands, Yang Jae-young deserves a gold metal, and it all began because some judge somewhere wasn’t paying close enough attention to detail.

Disclaimer: we are all human. we are not infallible, that is why pencils have erasers. I am not angry at the judges, Paul Hamm, or Yang Jae-young nor am I calling any of them a bad person - I am simply pointing out an error which needs to be corrected. Why should Paul Hamm and Yang Jae-young be faulted for a mistake such as this one? Neither of them were at fault (at least, not that I can tell)

I am not condoning the actions of Paul Hamm either, personally and under my own moral code, it would have been nice to see him say “I’m sorry that we had to go through all of this hooey, but you were a great gymnast and you really deserve this gold medal Yang” - but, again, this is under my own philosophy and personal code. Paul Hamm is free to make his own choices based on his own moral codes and I cannot fault him for that.