Paul and Morgan hamm

Paul Hamm

Paul Hamm competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, with his twin brother Morgan. He won the silver medal in the team event and was awarded gold in the individual all-around competition, becoming the only American man in Olympic history to win the gold medal in that event.

Hamm held a good position after three rounds, but a disastrous fall on the vault, in which he nearly fell into the judges' bench, dropped him to 12th place and he looked to be completely out of the running for a medal of any sort. Indeed, had a judge and the bench not been able to break Hamm's fall, he might have fallen from the podium and sustained injury. However, numerous faults by the other gymnasts, combined with Hamm's performance on the parallel bars, returned him to fourth place after the fifth rotation. His high bar routine gained him a score of 9.837, winning him the gold medal by a margin of .012, the closest in Olympic Gymnastics history. His scores on the six disciplines were:

• Floor: 9.725 (1st)
• Pommel Horse: 9.700 (4th)
• Rings: 9.587 (8th)
• Vault: 9.137 (12th)
• Parallel Bars: 9.837 (1st)
• Horizontal bar: 9.837 (1st)
• Overall: 57.823 (1st)

Hamm also nearly won the Gold on the Horizontal bar at the 2004 Olympics but was awarded the silver after a tiebreaker.

Morgan Hamm

(born September 24, 1982 in Washburn, Wisconsin) is a US gymnast. He is an Olympic and World medalist.

Hamm is the son of Sandy and Cecily Hamm. In addition to his twin brother, Paul Hamm, his older sister, Elizabeth (Betsy), is a former member of USA Gymnastics Senior National Team. She competed for the University of Florida, where she became the NCAA’s national balance beam champion in 1998 and was a seven-time All American. His father was an All-American springboard diver.

Career

He competed at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney while aged 17, and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, alongside his twin brother Paul, helping the American team win the silver medal in the team gymnastics competition. Morgan's contribution to this historic medal was vital: he performed on four of the six pieces and was the highest scorer for the team on vault and high bar, where other more renowned gymnasts had faltered. He also competed in floor and high bar finals, and only a tie-breaker kept him from taking bronze on the latter event.

Morgan was a member of the US team for 2003 world championships, where he helped them to a silver medal.

In February 2007, Hamm announced that he would return to competitive gymnastics. He competed at the 2007 Visa National Championships, on floor and pommel horse. He competed at the 2008 Nationals and at the Olympic Trials. He was warned by the United States Anti-Doping Agency in July for testing positive for glucocorticosteroid, and his results at the May 24 nationals competition were thrown out. Hamm claimed he had a legitimate medical need for the drug. ^[1] He was ultimately selected for the 2008 Olympic team.

He withdrew from the Olympics with injury on August 7, 2008, due to an ankle injury. ^[2] Alexander Artemev replaced him on the team.