First he won. Then he didn't. Then he did again. Brazilian swimmer Leonardo De Deus finished first in the men's 200-meter butterfly Monday at the Pan American Games, but was immediately disqualified because of a sponsor's logo on his swim cap. About 20 minutes later, that ruling was overturned on appeal, giving De Deus the gold in a winning time of 1 minute, 57.92 seconds. “Justice was done. I touched first,” the 20-year-old De Deus said. “It would be hard to win it but then have it taken away from you because of a mistake by the organizers.” De Deus said he went through the regular uniform check before the competition and organizers said there was nothing wrong with his cap. “The official pool deck believed the cap was in breach of rules and consequently did what he should do and disqualified the swimmer,” said Eldon Godfrey, president of the Amateur Swimming Union of the Americas. “The cap was re-examined by all parties and found to be in compliance with the rules.” Meanwhile, Argentina won three of the four rowing gold medals and Colombia was joined by Venezuela atop the cycling podiums Monday. The US dominated shooting and equestrian dressage with three more gold medals. Gabriela Best, single sculls silver medallist at the 2007 Rio Games, and Laura Abalo began the Argentine assault of the rowing finals winning the women's coxless pair with the United States taking silver and Canada bronze. The first of the day's four finals, the women's double sculls, was won by Cuba's Yariulvis Cobas and Aimee Hernandez ahead of the US pair with the Canadians third. Colombia, who had already won three cycling gold medals, took a fourth in the men's team pursuit. Juan Arango, Edwin Avila, Arles Castro and Weimar Roldan beat title holder Chile in a games record time of three minutes 59.236 seconds, over six seconds short of Britain's world record set at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Argentina won the bronze medal.
