Paul Hamm

London: American gymnast Paul Hamm will keep his Olympic all-around gold medal after the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected on Thursday an appeal from South Korea?s Yang Tae-young.

?The CAS has decided to dismiss the appeal,? a court spokesman said. ?This means that the ranking of the men?s individual gymnastics all-around event remains the same.?

Hamm became the first American man to win the Games all-around title in Athens on August 18 but just three days later it transpired he had been awarded the title due to a scoring error.

In one of the biggest controversies of the Athens Olympics, the governing body of gymnastics (FIG) ruled bronze medallist Yang should have been awarded the gold as he was incorrectly docked a 10th of a point from his parallel bars routine.

The FIG immediately suspended the three technical judges involved but refused to redistribute the medals.

Following a 12-hour hearing at its headquarters in Lausanne last month, CAS upheld the original result to end almost two months of legal wrangling.