(Broadcast Media Note: Vanderbilt has a campus broadcast facility with
a dedicated fiber optic line for live TV interviews and a radio ISDN
line)
Allan Erbsen worked as legal counsel at Athens Olympics
The likelihood is slim that Paul Hamm will be ordered to surrender his
gold medal, despite an appeal by South Korean gymnast Yang Tae Young
being heard by Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday, Sept. 27.
Allan Erbsen, a Vanderbilt fellow and instructor at Vanderbilt Law
School, says that South Korean officials waited too late to protest
when some judges mistakenly shaved 0.100 off Young’s score. "If the
protest had been timely, and if the judges had nevertheless failed to
correct their error, then South Korea would have had a plausible claim
that the international gymnastics federation violated its rules and
that an arbitration panel should remedy the violation by awarding a
gold medal to the affected athlete," Erbsen said. But the historical
reluctance to reverse competition outcomes and the late filing of the
protest will probably doom the chances for the appeal to succeed,
Erbsen said.
Erbsen has made many appearances
before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and other sports tribunals
arguing appeals involving field-of-play judging decisions, doping and
disciplinary actions, and eligibility disputes. He worked on several
cases in Athens, including defending against a challenge to the
compostion of the U.S. women’s road cycling team, an appeal against the
exclusion of the Canadian team from the two-men rowing final, and the
defense against a doping-related appeal by suspended sprinter Torri
Edwards.
(To contact Erbsen, call Vanderbilt University News Service at 615-322-2706)
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu