CAS: Bitter wrestler who dropped medal was right

BEIJING (AP) Turns out the wrestler who was stripped of his bronze medal for dropping it in disgust had good reason to be angry, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled Saturday.

The wrestler, Ara Abrahamian of Sweden, complained to CAS about the fact that a penalty that happened in the second round of his bout against Italian Andrea Minguzzi wasn't assessed until after the round ended. Once factored in, Abrahamian automatically lost the match. Minguzzi went on to win the gold medal.

His coach was denied a request for a video review, then the wrestling federation - the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles, or FILA - refused to even consider a protest.

The Armenian-born Abrahamian - who also lost a 2004 Olympic semifinal match on a disputed call - initially wanted the judges in the match tossed and his medal restored. But he backed down on those demands and in the end was only asking CAS to verify that the lack of an immediate appeals process is a loophole that needs to be fixed. It also was referred to as a violation of "the Olympic Charter and FILA's own rules about fair play."

The judges said Abrahamian was right.

"We limit ourselves to ruling that FILA must, consistently with the (Olympic) Charter and general principles of fairness, establish for the future a jury of appeal to determine the validity or otherwise of complaints of the kind ventilated by (Abrahamian)," the judges wrote.

Elsewhere in the 20-page ruling, judges noted several times that FILA did not appear at a hearing.

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