i watched the men's allaround gym finals yesterday and paul hamm was a true inspiration. normally you'd think that after screwing up your fourth event with a dismal score of 9.1 caused by lurching into the judges' table after an awful landing from vault, there'd be no chance for a medal, much less the gold. usually there wouldn't be anything left to compete for, you'd reason that it wouldn't be possible to get back into the running after that horrific mistake. hamm was twelvth after four rotations, which left him with only parallel bars and high bar to redeem his olympic dream. but hamm pulled off one of the most electrifying parallel bars routine i'd ever seen immediately after his vault, which earned him 9.837 points and rocketed him into fourth place, within reach of the top three. and a similarly powerfully inspirational high bar routine (three releases! with the one-armed giant swing! god.) was enough to propel him past the koreans and back to the place where he belonged- the top spot.
the true spirit of a sportsman- it's never over till the end. and he thoroughly deserves his victory. i'm inspired.

Hamm's victory was high drama
By Jill Lieber, USA TODAY


ATHENS — When he walked over to the high bar at Olympic Indoor Hall, the final gymnast in the final event of the men's gymnastics all-around competition Wednesday, Paul Hamm had no idea he needed to score more than 9.825 to pull himself out of fourth place and take home the gold medal. What he had in his mind after he crash-landed on the vault two events earlier was that he needed to pull off the performances of his life to even get the bronze. So Hamm took a deep breath and began swinging powerfully through the air, executing his technically difficult routine and then nailing his landing. When his score came up — 9.837 — he still wasn't sure if it would be enough. And even after the arena scoreboard retabulated the scores, and his coach, Miles Avery, screamed, "Olympic champion!" Hamm couldn't quite compute what had just happened. "I looked at Miles and said, 'Olympic champion? No way!' " a still-stunned Hamm said an hour later. "I really had thought gold was totally out of the question."

In one of the most dramatic comebacks in sports, with the closet margin of victory, 0.012, in Olympic history, Hamm, 21, of Waukesha, Wis., became a U.S. men's gymnastics legend.

An hour after the event was over, Hamm was still trying to fathom what had just happened.
"After I missed the vault, I thought there was no chance for gold," Hamm said. "I thought maybe a bronze. I was very upset and depressed, because I knew that all-around was my best chance for winning the gold. When the score came up and Miles yelled, 'Olympic champion,' I was still shocked, because I just didn't think it was possible. How could it be possible?"

Hamm had come to Athens as the reigning world champion, filled with high expectations, billed with lots of media fanfare. He showed strength, power, creativity and consistency throughout the qualifications and team finals. All along he had said if he hit all six events, there was no question the all-around title would be his.

On the night's first event, the floor exercise, Hamm made a statement, his solid tumbling earning 9.725 to put him into first place, tied with China's Yang Wei, the 2000 Olympic and 2003 world silver medalist. He followed with a 9.7 on the pommel horse, although Wei snuck past him on the still rings to take a .037 lead. Next it was Hamm's turn on the rings, his weakest event, and he scored a solid 9.587, celebrating with a pinpoint landing and pumped fists. Wei dipped on the vault (9.512), and Hamm took over first by .038.

And then disaster struck. Hamm didn't rotate enough on his vault, which caused him to sit down on the landing and almost fall off the podium, nearly hitting a judge. He appeared to have fallen out of medal contention in one fell swoop, scoring 9.137 and dropping to 12th.
"I just didn't get enough power off the vault," he said. "I landed to the side and couldn't withstand the impact, and I fell over."
A collective gasp, then murmurs, swept through the hall. Hamm sat on a chair on the sideline adjacent to the vault runway, stunned and forlorn, staring silently into space, figuring his shot at U.S. men's gymnastics immortality was gone.
First up on the next event, parallel bars, Hamm pulled off a great routine — his handstand positions were solid and very extended. His double-pike dismount was the period at the end of his never-say-die sentence. Some of the leaders who followed him on the parallel bars had problems, but the last man in the event, Korea's Yang, stuck a 9.775 and took over first place.

Elsewhere in the arena, the gymnasts in sixth through 11th place started faltering, too. All of that helped rocket Hamm into fourth place — and put him in striking distance on the high bar, his strongest event. "I'm very happy right now," Hamm said. "I was so angry at myself after I'd missed the vault. I had worked years for that moment, and it all went down the drain.

"And then I had the best performance of my life on high bar. I'm proud of myself. I realized my dream. And I never, never, never gave up."
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