South Korea's Yang Tae-young accepted an international sport court's ruling on Thursday that rejected his appeal for a gymnastics gold medal at the Athens Olympics.
"I hoped for a good decision, but I also didn't rule out a decision not in favor of me," Yang said. "I don't want to think about it any more."
PHOTO: EPA
The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected Yang's request that he be given the gold medal in the men's all-around competition because of a scoring error.
In its ruling, CAS said American Paul Hamm remains the rightful champion because the South Koreans didn't protest until after the meet.
It also said an "error identified with the benefit of hindsight" was not a ground to correct results.
Yang, 24, said he acknowledged that there could be scoring errors because "the scoring is done by humans, not by a machine."
"I will perform better in the future so that such an error won't happen again," he said. "I won't stop here. ... My plan is to train very hard and win a gold in the next Olympics in Beijing."
Yang, who won the bronze, had asked the court to order international gymnastics officials to correct the results, and adjust the medal rankings so he would get gold and Hamm the silver.
South Koreans were outraged when Olympic judges scored Yang's parallel bars routine incorrectly on Aug. 18, costing him the gold. The Korea Olympic Committee apologized to the nation on Thursday.
"We are sorry about the court's decision but accept it," the committee said in a statement.
"We are sorry that we could not live up to the expectations of the people who have shown concern and encouraged us."
It urged the international sports community to guarantee "fair and clean Games in the future and ensure that victims like Yang Tae-young won't happen again."
Park Duk-pyo, head of the Korean Gymnastics Association, said he honors the verdict but "laments" that the ruling focused too much on a "procedural" problem of the South Korean appeal.
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