U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles may have to return the bronze medal she won at the 2024 Paris Olympics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled in favor of an appeal filed by the Romanian gymnastics team.
During the women’s floor exercise final on Monday, Aug. 5, Chiles initially earned a score of 13.666, which placed her fifth, right behind Romania’s Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. The two Romanian gymnasts finished with matching scores of 13.700; Barbosu thought she had secured the bronze via a tiebreaker — a higher execution score.
However, Team USA gymnastics coach Cecile Canqueteau-Landi filed an on-floor appeal, arguing that Chiles’ score was incorrect due to the routine’s level of difficulty. The judges agreed and adjusted Chiles’ score by 0.1, which was enough to surpass Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea.
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After the medal ceremony, the Romanian team filed its own appeal, noting that Team USA’s appeal occurred outside the one-minute time limit to question the judges’ scores.
CAS agreed with the Romanians’ point about the time limit, finding that Team USA’s appeal came one minute and four seconds after Chiles’ score was posted. (By rule, because Chiles was the final athlete to compete on the event, her coaches had just one minute to file the inquiry, while the rest of the field had until the score of the following gymnast was shown to make their verbal appeal.)
Therefore, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) restored the original scoring following the court’s ruling on Saturday, placing Barbosu back in third, Maneca-Voinea fourth and Chiles fifth.
FIG spokesperson Meike Behrensen told The Associated Press that “reallocation of medals is the responsibility of the IOC [International Olympic Committee].”
“We are devastated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling regarding women’s floor exercise,” USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee said in a joint statement. “The inquiry into the Difficulty Value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was filed in good faith and, we believed, in accordance with FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring.”
The statement continued: “Throughout the appeal process, Jordan has been subject to consistent, utterly baseless and extremely hurtful attacks on social media. No athlete should be subject to such treatment. We condemn the attacks and those who engage, support or instigate them. We commend Jordan for conducting herself with integrity both on and off the competition floor, and we continue to stand by and support her.”
Earlier Saturday, Chiles posted an Instagram story with four broken heart emojis and subsequently announced she was taking time and “removing herself from social media” for her mental health. Her teammates Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee have been among the athletes to share their support for her amid the dramatic circumstances.
“All this talk about the athlete, what about the judges?? Completely unacceptable,” Lee posted to Instagram. “This is awful and I’m gutted for Jordan. … [You] have all my flowers and you will always be an Olympic champion.”
Biles reposted Lee’s statement and shared a message of her own, captioning a photo of her and Chiles in the emotional moments after the floor exercise results were announced, “Sending you so much love Jordan. Keep your chip up Olympic champ! We love you!”
Monday’s floor exercise final came at the end of the artistic gymnastics competition, which saw Chiles and Team USA capture the gold medal — part of their “redemption tour” following the turbulent Tokyo games in 2021, where they won silver. On floor, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won the gold medal (with a score of 14.166), while Biles earned the silver (scoring 14.133). Along with Chiles, the trio made the first all-Black podium in the history of women’s Olympic gymnastics.
When Andrade ascended to the top spot on the podium, Biles and Chiles bowed to her and the spontaneous display of sportsmanship instantly went viral, with athletes and entertainers sharing photos and videos of the moment on social media. Even the Musêe du Louvre got in on the action, invoking the meme “hang it in the Louvre” which is often applied to moments deemed so wonderful they deserve to be commemorated in the museum.
At the press conference following the medal ceremony, the U.S. gymnasts revealed that the salute was Chiles’ idea.
“She’s an icon, a legend herself,” Chiles said of Andrade. “I feel like being recognized is what everyone should do when it comes to somebody who’s put in the work, put in the dedication … Why don’t we just give her her flowers?”
Maybe we should hang it in the Louvre…
