Gymnastics

Chaos erupted at the closing event of the gymnastics when fans stalled proceedings for almost 10 minutes as they booed at a low mark awarded to four-times Olympics champion Alexei Nemov.

"People power" brought gymnastics judges to their knees at the end of more than a week of Olympic action in which the performance of the athletes was overshadowed by scoring controversies.

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Chaos erupted at the closing event of the gymnastics programme when fans stalled proceedings for almost 10 minutes as they booed and jeered at a low mark awarded to four-times Olympics champion Alexei Nemov for his horizontal bar display.

Such was the venom of the crowd, the stunned judges were forced to modify Nemov's score on the spot in the hope of restoring order to the competition.

While the revised total failed to lift the Russian into the medals, the incident brought to the fore the injustice many gymnasts have felt during the 2004 Olympics.

In one of the biggest controversies of the Athens Games, the ruling body of gymnastics (FIG) declared American Paul Hamm had been awarded the all-round gold due to a judging error.

It said South Korean bronze medallist Yang Tae-young had been incorrectly docked a 10th of a point from his parallel bars routine and hence was "the true winner" of the competition.

The FIG suspended the three judges involved but said it had no mechanism to overturn the final standings.

Despite suggestions from the FIG for Hamm to hand the gold to Yang in a gesture of fair play, the American said: "I personally feel that I was the champion that night.

"What I did was absolutely incredible to come back from 12th place after the vault and I don't think that anyone should take that moment away."