Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal in the floor exercise in the gymnastics floor exercise at the Paris Games will be reallocated to Ana Bărbosu of Romania, the International Olympic Committee said in a statement Sunday, after a court invalidated the correction to Chiles’ score that put her on the podium.
USA Gymnastics, though, said Sunday the basis for the court’s ruling was wrong — and that it had submitted video evidence to prove it.
The complicated back-and-forth between national gymnastics federations and international entities comes six days after one of the most emotional moments of the Summer Olympics. Every second of that moment is now being slowed down and scrutinized.
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 received. The judges agreed, changing her score to 13.766 and bumping her ahead of Bărbosu and Romanian teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. Upon seeing the score, Chiles screamed in celebration and was overcome with emotion, while Bărbosu, who had thought she was the bronze medalist, dropped her Romanian flag out of shock and left the floor in tears.
The Romanian team later petitioned the Court of Arbitration for Sport, claiming the inquiry from Landi came after the allowed one-minute window for such a challenge. The court agreed and said the challenge was four seconds too late. Its ruling invalidated Chiles’ score, and the International Gymnastics Federation, known as FIG, officially changed the ranking of the competition, putting Chiles back in fifth place.
The IOC said Sunday it was in contact with Romania’s Olympic committee about a medal reallocation ceremony for Barbosu, and with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee “regarding the return of the bronze medal.”
The USOPC said as it promised to appeal that there were “critical errors” in both FIG’s scoring and the CAS appeal process.
USA Gymnastics said it had video evidence showing Landi’s inquiry came 47 seconds after the publishing Chiles’ score, and said it submitted the video and a letter to CAS on Sunday.
“The time-stamped, video evidence submitted by USA Gymnastics Sunday evening shows Landi first stated her request to file an inquiry at the inquiry table 47 seconds after the score is posted, followed by a second statement 55 seconds after the score was originally posted,” USA Gymnastics said. “The video footage provided was not available to USA Gymnastics prior to the tribunal’s decision and thus USAG did not have the opportunity to previously submit it.”
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.
Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles celebrate their medals in the floor exercise final on Monday. A rules technicality is now forcing Chiles to surrender her bronze. (Naomi Baker / Getty Images)
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, which emphasized the timing of the inquiry rather than the score correction itself.
Now, USA Gymnastics and CAS disagree on that exact timing. 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.
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.”
Bărbosu shared her reaction to the news with Golazo.ro, 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.”
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(Photo: Naomi Baker / Getty Images)
