Paul Hamm

New York: Olympic all-around champion Paul Hamm said on Monday that he would return his gold medal if the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rules that a judging error denied South Korea?s Yang Tae-young the title.

?If it is determined by the rules of gymnastics that I should give back my medal, I will,? said Hamm, during a teleconference at the end of the 12-hour hearing at a hotel near CAS?s Lausanne headquarters.

?I thought everything went very smoothly today. It was a very fair hearing and everyone got a chance to say what they thought and we are looking forward to the decision. I?m just going to try and forget about it until the decision is made.

?Yang is a great athlete and the dispute doesn?t involve his or my actions. I empathise with him and prefer that this could be resolved on the field of play.?

In one of the biggest controversies of the Athens Games, the International gymnastics federation (FIG) said Yang should have won the gold but was incorrectly docked a 10th of a point from his parallel bars routine in the final.

The federation suspended three judges but said it had no mechanism to overturn the final standings. Hamm kept the gold medal despite suggestions from the FIG that he should give it to Yang. The South Korean Olympic Committee filed an appeal with CAS, which is expected to announce its ruling within two weeks.

Hamm, the first American to win the coveted Olympic all-around title, was accompanied to the hearing by a large delegation that included members of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), lawyers and witnesses.

USOC general counsel Jeff Benz told the three-member CAS panel that their were several compelling reasons to let the result stand, including the judicial review of field of play decision making.