![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hamm should give up the gold
Aug. 23rd, 2004 04:50 pmBy Mike Celizic
Updated: 12:28 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2004
ATHENS, Greece - Paul Hamm had his golden moment, and he grabbed it like a starving wolf latching onto a lamb chop. And now he has a golden opportunity, worth a lifetime of moments, and if he doesn’t grab it right now, it will be gone forever. He may already have missed his chance to show the world that Americans still believe in sportsmanship and to generate the kind of goodwill that this country will never recover, no matter how many times the White House issues statements about how much better off Iraq is now than it was before we brought peace, harmony, democracy and full employment there.
On Sunday night, Hamm competed for individual medals in two disciplines. All he had to do was call members of the South Korean delegation beforehand, tell them to meet him in the packed arena before the competition, and hang his medal around Yang Tae-young’s neck. A packed arena would have erupted in cheers that you could have heard at the bottom of a well in Montana. Women everywhere would still be weeping a week from now at the nobility of the gesture, and not a few men would be weeping with them.
Not because it is something Hamm had to do, but because it is something he or anyone in his situation should do. Yang is the man who, had the judges been able to count to 10, would have won the all-around gold that went to Hamm last week.
( Read more )
Updated: 12:28 p.m. ET Aug. 23, 2004
ATHENS, Greece - Paul Hamm had his golden moment, and he grabbed it like a starving wolf latching onto a lamb chop. And now he has a golden opportunity, worth a lifetime of moments, and if he doesn’t grab it right now, it will be gone forever. He may already have missed his chance to show the world that Americans still believe in sportsmanship and to generate the kind of goodwill that this country will never recover, no matter how many times the White House issues statements about how much better off Iraq is now than it was before we brought peace, harmony, democracy and full employment there.
On Sunday night, Hamm competed for individual medals in two disciplines. All he had to do was call members of the South Korean delegation beforehand, tell them to meet him in the packed arena before the competition, and hang his medal around Yang Tae-young’s neck. A packed arena would have erupted in cheers that you could have heard at the bottom of a well in Montana. Women everywhere would still be weeping a week from now at the nobility of the gesture, and not a few men would be weeping with them.
Not because it is something Hamm had to do, but because it is something he or anyone in his situation should do. Yang is the man who, had the judges been able to count to 10, would have won the all-around gold that went to Hamm last week.
( Read more )
