In the United States, the Los Angeles Times says U.S. Olympic officials would consider supporting the idea of awarding duplicate gold medals to American Paul Hamm and Korean Yang Tae-young.

The move comes after international gymnastics officials admitted a key judging mistake in the men's all-around event at the Athens Olympics.

But Sunday's edition of the paper said potential U.S. support for duplicate medals, while significant, would mark only the first step in any such effort. The report said any such proposal would have to be considered by the International Gymnastics Federation and that if the federation were then to recommend such a move, the International Olympic Committee might have to take it up.

The daily said it is not immediately clear whether the federation or the IOC would consider such a proposal, citing South Korea's dwindling influence within the IOC.

The reports also mentioned South Koreans' angry reaction to the scoring error with netizens flooding websites and Internet chat rooms claiming that Hamm was the beneficiary of U.S. favoritism.