Lausanne, Switzerland ? For weeks, Paul Hamm’s Olympic gold medal sat in a drawer at his boyhood home, carefully tucked inside a sock so it wouldn’t be scratched or damaged. There was, after all, a chance he’d have to give it to someone else.

Now, two months after it first was draped around his neck, the gold medal is his — finally and forever.

Gymnast Paul Hamm holds his Olympic gold medal. Hamm met the media Thursday in New York following rejection of a South Korean appeal.

Sports’ highest court rejected an appeal from a South Korean gymnast on Thursday, ruling that Hamm is the rightful champion in the men’s all-around competition at the Athens Games. The verdict is final and cannot be appealed.

“It feels like it’s mine now. If I were to damage it in any way, it wouldn’t be going to anyone else. If I ruin it, it’s mine to ruin,” Hamm said. “Now I’ll be able to put it in a safe place and leave it there.”

And leave this whole mess behind him.

“There’s been a lot of fighting for this medal. I feel like I’ve won it three times,” he said. “I think it’ll mean that much more, that I’ll be able to keep it for the rest of my life.”

The decision by a three-judge panel from the Court of Arbitration for Sport ends a tussle that began more than two months ago, when South Korea’s Yang Tae-young claimed a scoring error had cost him victory. Yang asked the court to order international gymnastics officials to change the results and adjust the medal rankings accordingly, giving him the gold and Hamm the silver.

But the CAS panel dismissed the appeal, leaving Hamm with gold and Yang with bronze. Kim Dae-eun of South Korea will keep the silver.

CAS arbitrators said the Korean protest was submitted too late and that CAS was not in a position to correct results, anyway.