Gold Fever

What should have been the crowning moment in his life turned out to be a painful and public ordeal. With the controversy finally over, can Paul Hamm find happiness in a new routine?

Paul Hamm is flanked by Kim Dae Eun (silver medal) and Yang Tae Young (bronze), who protested the result. (Kevork Djansezian - AP)

A FRIDAY MORNING, AND THE HAMMS ARE AT THE STEELWOOD GYM. They are not, however, here to work out. They've come for the first of several meetings with producers of the ABC show "20/20," which will feature the Hamms in an upcoming special. The special's conceit is that each twin will be paired with an obese family from the greater Columbus area, and Paul and Morgan will engage in a kind of slimming match by proxy. Each twin will try to spur his assigned family toward greater physical fitness and a healthier diet, and whoever's family winds up leaner at the weigh-in two months from now will be declared the "winner."

The "20/20" people arrive -- producers, cameramen and the host, Martin Bashir. Bashir strides over and shakes the Hamms' hands, his great alabaster smile flashing under the vapor lamps. "Lovely to meet you," he says to Paul. "You were brilliant in Athens. You killed everyone! You murdered them."

Paul glances at the floor. "I don't know if I murdered anyone," he says in his small, faintly helium-inhalatory voice.

The Hamms and the "20/20" folks head into a conference room so Bashir can chat with them before their taped conversation later this morning.

"As I understand it," Bashir says, leaning into the table, "you grew up on a farm, sort of kicking yourselves to death in barns and practicing on beams that were just sort of set up -- "

Actually, Paul and Morgan did not grow up on a farm, nor did they learn their gymnastics skills in a barn. "It's been blown out of proportion quite a bit," Paul says later of the farm legend. "People liked the idea, and then they added things to it."

They did grow up next door to a Wisconsin farm with a barn on the premises, where they used to play as boys. The twins' older sister, Betsy, was the first in the family to take up gymnastics (she was ultimately an NCAA co-champion on the balance beam). Paul thought it "looked like a lot of fun" and started his training at age 7. Morgan, who is 30 minutes Paul's senior, began a month later. Almost immediately, they showed a preternatural talent for the sport. By the time the twins were 13, their Olympic potential was evident, and they devoted the balance of their adolescence to training successfully for spots on the U.S. team for the 2000 Games in Sydney.

In the meeting room, Paul is trying to set Bashir straight on the finer points of the barn story.

"Well," Paul says. "It was really -- "

"No!" Bashir says. "Don't tell me now." He pauses a moment, evidently pondering the dramatic possibilities of the Hamms' relatively mundane childhood. Bashir seems more adept at sensational grotesquerie than at quiet human-interest stories. His recent oeuvre includes a troubling documentary on Michael Jackson (which Jackson later decried) and a number of pieces on murderers, serial and otherwise, conjoined twins, etc., but he's met his match with the unassuming Hamm brothers. "It's a lovely tale, because it's, it's very -- " Bashir says, searching for the right word, " -- ordinary . . . I know this sounds tedious, but you grew up on a farm. Does that mean you had access to vegetables and your diet was particularly sensible?"

"We did have a garden," Paul offers. "Our mom was growing tomatoes and -- "

"It wasn't that big a garden," Morgan says.

"Yeah, it wasn't all that big," Paul says, "but we would have fresh raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, corn. Our mom always fed us very healthy meals."

"And you were always very active," Bashir says.

"Yeah," Paul says. "We would do gymnastics, and on top of that we'd go out and do other sports just for fun."

Bashir nods gravely. "That's really, really important," he says. "I mean, if you don't mind talking a little bit about that story, because that helps in the context of what we're trying to achieve. Because imagine a family that hasn't had your benefits, parenting. It's much more difficult, so it's great to hear that."

Then they talk a little while about the sorts of shots they intend to set up for the morning's video taping. "Do you strap prior to training?" Bashir asks.

"On certain events," Paul says.

"On pommel horse you wear braces," Morgan says as Bashir nods again. Still hot on the idea of strapping, he asks, "Do you strap them on? You don't get a coach to do that?"

Then Bashir asks whether Miles Avery is a particularly savage coach.

"In Britain," he says, "we have a grand tradition of people swearing at their teams. The coaches just go into the dressing room and go -- " Here, Bashir seems to want to give the twins an example of the sort of motivational swearing a fuming British coach might wield against his team, but faced with the Hamms' pervasive wholesomeness, he's unable to fire off an actual cuss word. Instead, he says, " 'You fuh!' -- and it just goes on and on like that, but Miles doesn't do that?"

"No," they both say.

Bashir's eyes narrow again, as though trying to figure a way out of this dead end. "What would be really nice when we're talking," he says after a moment, "is if you could kind of engage in your own rivalry. You've obviously worked very well together throughout these competitions where you've competed, and it hasn't actually spoiled your relationship. But it would be nice, not to spoil the relationship, but to put some fire into it for these competitions. It would really be motivational for these families and help them push themselves. You were fitter when you were 4 than they've ever been, so part of the motivation for them is looking at you and thinking, 'Wow!' You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Morgan says.

"Yeah," Paul says.

Several hours from now, the "20/20" staff will be taking the twins to meet the families. The producer, James Goldston, impresses upon the Hamms the importance of emphasizing the sacrifices the families will be brooking during the upcoming slimming derby. "It'll be like that scene from 'Fame.' You know, 'Here is where the hard work -- ' I forget -- y'know, 'Here is where you start paying.' "