American gymnast Paul Hamm will hold on his Olympic all-round gold medal after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected on Thursday an appeal from South Korea's Yang Tae-young.

"The Court of Arbitration has decided to dismiss the appeal," acourt spokesman told reporters. "This means that the ranking of the men's individual gymnastics all-round event remains the same."

Hamm became the first American man to win the Games all-round title in Athens on August 18 but just three days later it transpired he had been awarded the title due to a scoring error.

The governing body of gymnastics (FIG) ruled bronze medallist Yang should have been awarded the gold as he was incorrectly docked a 10th of a point from his parallel bars routine but refused to redistribute the medals.

At a hearing at Lausanne headquarters last month, CAS upheld the original result.

Source: Xinhua