Jordan Chiles to lose Olympic bronze medal after court overturns score change

Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal in the floor exercise at the Paris Games gymnastics competition will be reallocated to Ana Bǎrbosu of Romania, the International Olympic Committee said in a statement Sunday, after a court ruling invalidated a correction to Chiles’ score that had put her on the podium.

“The IOC will reallocate the bronze medal to Ana Bǎrbosu (Romania),” the statement said. “We are in touch with the (National Olympic Committee) of Romania to discuss the reallocation ceremony and with USOPC regarding the return of the bronze medal.”

In Monday’s floor exercise final, Chiles was the last competitor and initially scored a 13.666, putting her in fifth place, less than a tenth of a point from bronze. But her coach, Cecile Landi, submitted an inquiry to challenge the difficulty score Chiles had received. The judges agreed, changing her score to 13.766 and bumping her ahead of Bǎrbosu and Romanian teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea.

But the Romanian team later petitioned the Court of Arbitration for Sport, claiming that the inquiry from Landi came outside the allowed one-minute window for such a challenge. The court agreed, invalidating Chiles’ score, and the International Gymnastics Federation, known as FIG, then announced that it had officially changed the ranking of the competition, putting Chiles back in fifth place.

Bǎrbosu shared her reaction to the news with Golazo.r0, saying her thoughts go out to Chiles and Maneca-Voinea.

“I know very well that it hurts, because I have been through the same states. But I know you and I’m sure you’ll have the strength to come back even stronger. I sincerely hope that at the next Olympic Games we will be on the same podium. This is my dream.”

In a statement Saturday, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee said they were “devastated” by the court ruling and would continue to stand by Chiles.

“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 said. “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.”

Chiles posted two Instagram stories following the ruling Saturday: one with four broken heart emojis and a second that read, “I am taking this time and removing myself from social media for my mental health thank you.”

Chiles, 23, had already had a hard-luck week at the Olympics. She finished fourth overall in all-around qualifying, but two of the three ahead of her were U.S. teammates Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee. The Olympics only allow two competitors from each country to advance to the all-around final, meaning Chiles was left out. Still, she played a huge role in helping the Americans secure gold in the team all-around and showed up to cheer on Biles and Lee in the individual event.

A few days later, she was in the floor exercise final. When her score was corrected, Biles enveloped her in a bear hug and the two celebrated what looked to be Chiles’ first career individual medal. She’s spent the week since enjoying the perks of being an Olympic medalist — celebrating, visiting Disneyland Paris and doing morning shows.

Then came the CAS ruling. The issue was the timing of the inquiry — which came four seconds too late — not the score correction itself. Because judges missed the accurate score initially, and because the U.S. team did not challenge it quickly enough, Chiles will now be forced to give up the bronze despite the content of her routine being worthy of a higher score.

The episode highlighted the confounding and sometimes byzantine nature of judged sports, and the whiplash of emotions tied to strings of small decisions.

CAS rejected part of the Romanian appeal that sought to raise the score for Maneca-Voinea because she had been improperly ruled out of bounds during a moment in her routine. It was denied even though video appeared to show that she stayed in bounds.

The Romanians also requested that CAS award all three competitors — each with arguments for being ahead of one another — bronze medals. That was rejected.

---

Related reading

(Photo: Naomi Baker / Getty Images)