October 28, 2004

Paul an Morgan are helping with Focus on Energy to promote energy efficientcy.

"What better way to showcase the "gold medal" potential of CFLs than by pairing these highly efficient light bulbs with USA gymnasts and "Change a Light, Change Wisconsin" spokespersons, Paul and Morgan Hamm."

"Paul & Morgan are excited to be working with Focus on Energy to promote the benefits of energy efficient lighting to Wisconsin residents. They've also helped their parents see the light and asked them to switch out their incandescent bulbs to ENERGY STAR qualified bulbs. It is a quick and easy solution that will help lower their utility bills."

Also, Kemps’ Debut Milk Mustache Ad is Hamm’s First Post-Olympic Endorsement Kemps Also Creates Ice Cream Flavor in Tribute to Hamm

MINNEAPOLIS, MN –Olympic champion gymnast Paul Hamm will sport a milk mustache for the first-ever Kemps “milk mustache” newspaper advertisement – his first post-Olympics endorsement. Surrounded by gymnastic equipment and wearing the famous white upper lip, the athlete’s photo also will appear on millions of Kemps milk cartons sold at major grocery stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin beginning Oct. 15. The Kemps milk mustache ad will debut this October in Wisconsin newspapers. “Kemps’ milk is a key component to building strong bones and healthy bodies,” says Rachel Kyllo, Kemps VP Marketing. “We chose Paul Hamm for our debut mustache ad because we feel he personifies the exceptional quality of our wholesome milk products.” Additionally, Kemps is creating a special ice cream flavor to commemorate Hamm’s Olympic victories in Athens. Called Gold Medal Pecan Swirl, this unique ice cream is built upon Hamm’s favorite flavor, butter pecan. Gold Medal Pecan Swirl is a base of butter pecan flavored ice cream blended with thick caramel swirls, pecans and caramel-filled chocolate “gold medals.” Gold Medal Pecan Swirl will appear on Minnesota grocery store shelves by November 1. “We at Kemps, like thousands of consumers across Minnesota and Wisconsin, are huge fans of Paul Hamm’s spirit, dedication and athleticism. Creating Gold Medal Pecan Swirl is Kemps’ way of celebrating his extraordinary sportsmanship,” Kyllo explains.

October 21, 2004

The day has finally come!
Paul Hamm Press Conference to Follow CAS Decision Regarding Gymnastics Olympic Gold Medal Appeal
For information about the ruling you can go to www.mofo.com, which is the home page for Morrison and Foerster LLP. Kelly Crabb, Paul's attourney, is with this firm. The ruling will come later today so check back frequently.

UPDATE:

Paul Hamm Retains Olympic Gold Medal
New York (October 21, 2004) – Olympic men’s all-around gymnastics gold medalist Paul Hamm will retain his gold medal after a decision issued today by The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, which dismissed the appeal of Korean gymnast Yang Tae Young. In dismissing Mr. Yang’s appeal, the CAS panel held that the rules of gymnastics required that any protest related to an alleged judging error must be made during the competition, on the field of play, and the Korean delegation failed to do so during the event in Athens. The panel stated that “no one can be certain how the competition in question would have turned out had the official’s decision been different,” that a different outcome would be “something in [the] realm of speculation, not of certainty.” The CAS panel noted that the Federation of International Gymnastics “sought to persuade Hamm to surrender his gold medal to Yang when there was no reason for him to do so.”
Paul Hamm stated: “This is a great day. I am so proud to be the Olympic all-around men’s gymnastics gold medalist. I want to thank the many people who have tirelessly supported me and stood by my side. There are a few who stand out and should be thanked publicly including my family and my brother Morgan, my manager Sheryl Shade, my attorneys Kelly Crabb and Max Olson from Morrison & Foerster, and the USOC and their attorneys. The decision from CAS confirms what I have always felt in my heart which is that I was the champion that night and that I am the Olympic all-around gold medalist. I competed my heart out and I followed all of the rules. It feels good to know that the CAS panel also agrees with that. I will put this behind me and move on to continue performing and competing as a world-class Olympic gymnast in the same manner I have always done with integrity and pride.”

Kelly Crabb, Max Olson and Jim Maniscalco of Morrison & Foerster represented Paul Hamm at the proceedings in Lausanne, Switzerland on September 27, 2004.
Kelly Crabb from Morrison & Foerster stated: “Let me first say that this is a great day for our client Paul Hamm, his family and the entire sport of gymnastics. The decision is in line with the main points that we presented to the CAS panel on September 27 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Those included: 1) We’ll never know who would have won the gold medal if Mr. Yang and his coaches made the inquiry in time; 2) The rules of gymnastics do not contemplate scoring adjustments based on hindsight review after the competition is over; 3) Mr. Yang received a fair score based on the fact that he had an impermissible fourth “stop” (held longer than one second) on his parallel bars routine, giving rise to a mandatory two-tenths deduction from his score that was missed by at least two of the gymnastics judges. (Several witnesses testified that there were at least four such stops by Mr. Yang.); and 4) Lastly, to rule for Mr. Yang would be unfair to Mr. Hamm and would forever damage the sport of gymnastics.”

Max Olson from Morrison & Foerster added: “We could not be more proud of our client Paul Hamm. We believed in him even before this ordeal began and he became our client. In our presentation to the CAS panel on September 27, 2004, we relied on the fact that Paul played by the rules and won according to the rules. Even going back and reviewing the performances – which according to the rules and tradition of gymnastics should never have taken place – it’s clear that Paul won the all-around gold medal. He performed like a true champion and deserved the gold medal. Through the rules that the governing bodies laid out, it’s hard to believe that there was ever a question of whether Paul Hamm was the clear winner. Today, that question goes away and our client can move on and enjoy his life as an Olympic gold medal winner.”

Links of interest:
CAS Decision (pdf format)
* Paul Hamm/MoFo Fact Sheet

Check out HammTwins.com for more inforamtion.

October 19, 2004

CAS to rule Thursday on gymnasts medal
October 19, 2004
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) -- U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm will find out Thursday whether he can keep his Olympic gold medal. Hamm won the all-around title in Athens, but South Koreas Yang Tae-Young wants the Court of Arbitration for Sport to change the results and move him from third place to first because of a scoring error. Hamm and Yang appeared before a three-judge panel of the CAS in Lausanne on Sept. 27. The court said Tuesday it will issue its verdict on Thursday.

Hamm has said he will abide by the ruling of the CAS, which cannot be appealed. Yang was wrongly docked 0.1 points for the level of difficulty of his parallel bars routine in the all-around. He ended up 0.049 points behind Hamm. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) acknowledged the error and suspended the three judges. But FIG officials said they wouldnt change the results because the South Koreans didnt file a protest in time. Then FIG president Bruno Grandi wrote a letter to Hamm asking him to surrender the gold medal voluntarily. That, in part, prompted the South Korean federation to appeal to the CAS.

October 12, 2004

U S Olympic Committee
UNITED STATES OLYMPIC COMMITTEE ANNOUNCES 2004 U.S. OLYMPIC SPIRIT AWARD WINNERS

U.S. Olympic Gold Medalists Paul Hamm, Misty May & Kerri Walsh To Be Honored

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The United States Olympic Committee announced today that 2004 U.S. Olympic gold and two-time silver medal gymnast Paul Hamm (Waukesha, Wis.) and the 2004 Olympic gold medal U.S. Women’s Beach Volleyball Team of Misty May (Newport Beach, Calif.) and Kerri Walsh (Saratoga, Calif.) have been named the winners of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Spirit Award, presented by Nu Skin Enterprises.

“It’s an honor for the U.S. Olympic Committee to recognize these athletes. We are grateful to our sponsor, Nu Skin Enterprises for their ongoing support,” said Jim Scherr, Chief Executive and Chief of Sport Performance for the United States Olympic Committee. “The accomplishments of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Teams, and all of the athletes who competed in Athens, reflect the true meaning of the Olympic spirit. It is through their efforts that the ideals of the Olympic Movement are demonstrated and furthered.”

“From the moment we stepped off the plane in Athens to the moment we heard our Anthem being played on the podium, we had an overwhelming sense of Olympic spirit and what it meant to be an Olympian and represent our country on the world stage,” expressed Kerri Walsh from her home in California.

Nu Skin Enterprises is the official sponsor of the U.S. Olympic Spirit Award for the years 2000, 2002 and 2004. The company will donate $2,000 to each male and female winner/team, which will then be given to an Olympic-related charity of their choice. In addition, Nu Skin Enterprises has provided ongoing support of Olympic-related charities through the sale of their Olympic-licensed Epoch products.

The U.S. Olympic Spirit Award
The U.S. Olympic Spirit Award, sponsored by the Nu Skin and Pharmanex divisions of Nu Skin Enterprises, celebrates more than gold-medal winning performances. It recognizes athletes who have struggled to overcome adversity in their quest for an Olympic title and who best exemplify the Olympic spirit through courage, commitment, perseverance and vision. The award was created in 1968. Winners for the 2004 U.S. Olympic Spirit Award were selected by the public via online voting at www.usolympicteam.com and NuSkin Enterprises internal voting at www.nuskinenterprises.com. More than 20,000 U.S. Olympic Team fans submitted online votes for the U.S. Olympians they believed best represented the ideals reflected in the U.S. Olympic Spirit Award.

About the Recipients/Honorees
Ranking a disappointing 12th after four rotations in the men’s gymnastics all-around competition at the 2004 Olympic Games, Paul Hamm stormed back to post consecutive 9.837 scores on the parallel bars and horizontal bar to capture the USA’s first ever all-around gold medal. The win was the first Olympic medal for the U.S. in the all-around since Peter Vidmar took the silver at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Just five days later, Hamm executed a near flawless routine to earn the silver in the high bar final, but missed capturing a third medal in the parallel bars by just .05 points. Hamm was also awarded the silver medal in the team competition.
“I was really surprised when I found out I won the Spirit Award,” said Paul Hamm. “I am really honored to have been nominated with athletes who have a ton of Olympic Spirit, l ike Michael Phelps. People on the street have been telling me ‘congratulations, you made us all proud and represented us well.’ It is great to see that so many Americans felt that I had enough Olympic spirit to earn this award.”

Misty May and Kerri Walsh had been sitting on top of the international beach volleyball rankings prior to arriving in Athens. In June 2004, May was sidelined due to an abdominal strain, making it questionable whether or not she would play with her long-time partner Walsh in the Olympic Games. Cleared to compete, the duo moved through the brackets undefeated in their seven matches before heading into and dominating the gold medal match to earn the first-ever Olympic medal for America in women’s beach volleyball. “Winning the U.S. Olympic Spirit Award is a huge honor for Misty and I,” Walsh explained. “We had a blast.”

Following Hamm for the men’s honorees were Rulon Gardner (Afton, Wyo.) and Michael Phelps ( Towson, Md.). Gardner, the 2000 Olympic Champion in the Greco-Roman wrestling 120 kg/264.5 lbs weightclass, overcame a near death snowmobile accident to return to the Olympic spotlight and capture the bronze in Athens. Swimmer Phelps earned eight Olympic medals, including six gold, to finish third in the online voting. Barb Lindquist (Victor, Idaho) and Deena Kastor (Mammoth Lakes, Calif.) were second and third, respectively, in the women’s category. Before finishing ninth in Athens, Lindquist won one of the biggest triathlons in history when she took home $250,000 from the 2003 Life Time Fitness Triathlon in Minneapolis, Minn. Kastor captured Olympic bronze in the women’s marathon, earning the U.S. its first marathon medal 20 years after Joan Benoit Samuelson won the first women's marathon at the 1984 Olympic Games.

October 8, 2004

Update: The original date for the court's final ruling over Paul Hamm's Gold metal has been changed.
Hamm ruling to be released in two weeks
by: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- A final decision on whether U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm keeps his Olympic gold medal will be released the week of Oct. 18-22, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said Friday. Hamm won the all-around gold medal at the Athens Olympics, but South Korean Yang Tae-young wants the CAS to change the results and move him up from third place to first because of a scoring error c ommitted by three judges. Hamm has said he will abide by the ruling of the CAS, which cannot be appealed.
Seattle PI

Just to clear things up for those who still belive that Paul "stole" or wrongfully took the Gold from Tae-Young I want to summarize three key arguments that were brought forth in court.

#1: Benz indicated the Koreans were appealing a "field-of-play" decision, a subjective scoring error which is an area CAS normally does not enter.
#2: He also said the U.S. lawyers argued that the Koreans had filed their protest on Yang's start value too late, after the competition had ended. A written protest is required under FIG rules, and it must be submitted before the next rotation begins.
#3: The third argument was that the relief sought by the Koreans, to change the final scoring of the event based on a single rotation, "would result in pure speculation about how the event would have come out had the scoring been different."

Had Tae-Young gotten the correct score to begin with and taken the lead he could have changed his attack on the final rotations. This is not an uncommon thing to do. When an athlete finds themselves in the lead they tend to ease off the attack mode to relieve their own pressure. Once they are in the lead an athlete has no reason to attack. Instead they will conserve their energy and maintain their lead status. So, if Tae-Young had gotten the correct score and taken the lead, he could have very well changed his routines and in doing so might have changed the final out come. If he had changed the way he went into his final routines Tae-Young's scores for each may have been different from what they currently are. There is no way to know for sure that if he had been given the correct score that he still would have won.

On a lighter note:

Hamm, a 22-year-old Waukesha native who won the Olympic all-around men's gymnastics competition in August, has signed an endorsement contract with Minneapolis-based Marigold Foods LLC for its Kemps brand milk and ice cream. Hamm sports a milk mustache for a Kemps milk newspaper advertisement - the first post-Olympics endorsement for the gymnast. The ad will debut this month in Wisconsin newspapers. Hamm's photo also will appear on millions of Kemps milk containers sold at supermarkets in Wisconsin and Minnesota beginning Oct. 15 and running through December. Finally, Kemps is creating a special ice cream flavor to commemorate Hamm's Olympic performance. The flavor, gold medal pecan swirl, has a base of butter pecan - Hamm's favorite - blended with thick caramel swirls and caramel-filled chocolate "gold medals." The flavor will appear on Wisconsin grocery store shelves by Nov. 1 and will be available through January. As a celebrity endorser, Hamm appealed to Marigold's strategy of selling Kemps' milk as a wholesome beverage with health benefits, said Rachel Kyllo, marketing vice president. In addition to Hamm's athletic ability, the gymnast's perseverance, "great attitude" and Wisconsin roots made him an obvious choice as an endorser for the company, Kyllo said. Hamm's come-from-behind gold medal victory at the Athens games was controversial. Because of a judging error discovered after the competition was completed, the International Gymnastics Federation asked Hamm to give his gold medal to South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-Young, who earned the bronze medal. U.S. Olympics officials argued the Koreans filed their protest too late, and the judges' decisions should be final. Tae-Young appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has not ruled on the matter yet. Kyllo said the controversy didn't lessen Hamm's endorsement value.
"He's a champion in anyone's book," Kyllo said.

October 6, 2004

This isn't actually news, just something I wanted Morgan and Paul to know incase they find this site.
I don't know if Morgan and Paul have actually seen this site but if you guys do pay at least one visit and you are reading this then I just wanted to say that you guys are awsome gymnasts with amazing talent. I haven't been following you guys for very long. In fact the first time I heard of you was at the 2004 games. My mom introduced me to you guys while watching the games cause she had seen you at the Sydney games and thought the two of you were great. And you are. I know how much hard work and dedication goes into being an athlete so great and so pure.
Paul-
I feel too, that you are the Champion. And I hurt for you that you have to go through such a terrible ordeal. Standing on top of the podium as the Champion should have been the proudest moment of your life. And I hope that it still and always is. Remember, they can take the gold from around your kneck, but they can never take the victory, and the glory, from around your heart and soul. They cant take away all the years of hard work and dedication because those belong to you.
-"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
-Theodore Roosevelt, Citizen in a Republic, April 23, 1910
But you did not fail Paul. You WON! Way to go Champ.
Morgan-
I am terribly sorry that you have to stand by and watch what is happening to your brother. Dont let this change how you feel about gymnastics or you dreams. I know its hard to watch someone you love get hurt. But, sometimes what hurts us, is what makes us stronger in the end. Congrats on your silver. I know that one day you will turn your dreams into Gold as well.

note: If this sounds familiar it is because I also posted this message on their official site.