American gymnast Jordan Chiles has found herself at the center of a 2024 Paris Olympics controversy: Does she or does she not return her now-contested bronze medal?
Chiles, 23, having already contributed to the Team USA gold medal in the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Team All-Around, performed her individual floor routine on August 6. She was up last in the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Floor Routine final. She walked onto the floor with swagger, wearing a sparkling white leotard, and flipped, twirled, and danced through her program. Laurie Hernandez, former Team USA gymnast and NBC gymnastics commentator, explained Chiles had a few landing errors while also complimenting her execution.
When scoring gymnastics, Olympic judges assign routines a difficulty score — how difficult it is to perform the moves gymnasts plan to perform — and an execution score — how well gymnasts execute those moves while on the floor. Chiles was scored with a 5.800 difficulty score and a 7.866 execution score. She was going to end with a 13.666 score, placing her in 5th and without a medal. At the time of Chiles’ performance, Romanian Ana Bărbosu was in third place. She and teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea were both scored 13.700, but Bărbosu was placed higher because the judges gave Maneca-Voinea a penalty for stepping out of bounds (even though she probably didn’t).
Right as NBC showed Bărbosu celebrating her bronze medal win, a commentator announced that Team USA submitted an inquiry into Chiles score, saying, “These scores — they might not stay.” A few seconds later, the graphics showed her updated score: The judges increased Chiles’ difficulty score to 5.900, bringing her final score to 13.766 and awarding her the bronze medal instead of Bărbosu. The cameras followed both gymnasts crying, one at the high point of her career, the other at the lowest.
The medal ceremony yielded one of the best feel-good moments of the Games: For the first-ever all-Black podium, Chiles suggested she and silver medalist Simone Biles playfully bow down to Brazilian gold medalist Rebecca Andrade. The respect and admiration between the women catapulted through social media.
Excitement over the history-breaking moment quickly became social media outrage when the Romanian Gymnastics Federation challenged the score change.
According to International Gymnastics Federation regulations, inquiries may only be made for difficulty scores, not execution, “provided they are made verbally immediately after the publication of the score or at the very latest before the score of the following gymnast/athlete or group is shown.” But Chiles competed last. This meant that her coach only had one minute after her score was shown to verbally submit the inquiry. Any inquires submitted outside of that minute are supposed to be rejected.
The Romanian Gymnastics Federation didn’t contest Chiles’ difficulty score. In fact, their inquiry seems to imply that they agreed with the second score. Romania contested that Cécile Landi, Team USA coach, submitted the score four seconds too late. They argued that her score should be reverted back to 13.666 but that all three gymnasts (Bărbosu, Voinea, and Chiles) should receive the bronze medal. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, the independent international court set up for these situations, ruled in favor of the Romanian gymnasts … sort of.
On Saturday, the Court ruled that Chiles’ score would revert back to 13.666 but her medal would be going to Bărbosu and only Bărbosu. American social media users and Chiles’ teammates quickly jumped to her defense.
The informal outrage was followed by a statement from USAG, explaining that they believed the inquiry was “filed in good faith” and within correct standards.
USAG posted again on Sunday to explain that they had found video evidence that the inquiry was filed within the minute and that there was a second inquiry, also within the minute. They had not previously been aware of the footage and therefore hadn’t submitted it during the Court’s arbitration.
On Monday, following Sunday’s Closing Ceremony, USAG posted that the CAS does not allow revisiting cases following final decisions, even when new evidence is presented. USAG promised to “pursue every possible avenue” to ensure the correct scoring and Chiles’ medal.
Bărbosu has since posted on her Instagram story that she hopes her, Chiles, and Maneca-Voinea will share the podium.
On Monday night, Flavor Flav — the newest and boldest champion of women’s sports and sponsor for the U.S. Women’s Water Polo team — unveiled a bronze clock necklace made for Chiles. Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee also posted the letter he sent to the CAS about the drama.
While many on social media have posted in support of Chiles, including posts telling her not to return the medal and many arguing that the blame and consequences should be on the judges, not the athletes, the world will likely have to wait for the resolution of the bronze medal saga. As with other Olympics-related inquiries, it could be until at least the next Olympics for Chiles and Bărbosu to have a final answer.
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