The New York Times says American gymnast Paul Hamn doesn't deserve the gold medal he won in the Olympic gymnastics all-round.

In an editorial on Monday, the U.S. daily said Hamm's gold medal has already been tarnished due to controversy over the scoring error.

The editorial said if Hamm won't do what it called the "magnanimous thing," then the International Olympic Committee ought to find a way to award duplicate gold medals as South Korean officials have suggested.

The paper said although the South Korean delegation made a mistake by waiting until after the medals had actually been awarded to protest the scoring mistake, the incident still reeks of injustice in that an athlete should lose a medal based a scoring error.

In an earlier interview, Hamm declared himself the real champion, resisting calls for him to voluntarily yield the gold medal.