Jordan Chiles’ recent book, I’m That Girl: Living the Power of My Dreams, debuted in March. Since the Olympics last summer, she’s traveled the country on the Gold Over America tour, as well as hitting all of the talk shows, some awards shows, and appearing in the huge Nike Super Bowl commercial. She’s having her moment right now.
However, as she reveals in her new book, it took a great deal to reach this point: a significant amount of work, strength training, physical and mental recovery, and stamina.
In the book, she shares never-before-heard stories about her childhood, her early gymnastics career, and the reasons everyone knows her name: her Beyoncé routine (including Beyoncé herself reaching out to tell Chiles that she and Jay-Z were excited about her sport), her Olympics appearances in 2021 and 2024, and her ill-fated bronze medal.
Though it has been all over social media that she still has the bronze medal in her possession, Chiles revealed new details about what it was like to go through the experience she had. As soon as the podium was set, Chiles, Simone Biles, who won silver, and Rebeca Andrade, who won gold, Chiles was launched into controversy regarding Romanian gymnasts and that bronze medal. See more about the controversy here.
There are two significant takeaways from the book that make reading it worthwhile: Chiles continues to open up the sports and gymnastics worlds to discussions about mental health, and she shares her in-depth thoughts and feelings from various moments throughout her gymnastics career.
United States of America Gymnastics had a reckoning almost ten years ago when Larry Nassar was arrested, charged, and convicted of abuse. Meanwhile, former coaches Béla and Márta Károlyi, the couple who ran the training camp where so many gymnasts were abused, were forced to step down from their positions, and the training camp was closed. Those events put gymnasts’ mental health in the spotlight, with many athletes speaking out about the mental, emotional, and physical abuse they underwent over the years at the camp.
Finally, following those horrible tragedies, gymnasts had a platform to open up about the mental gymnastics involved in the sport, shedding light on the abuse many have faced over the years. Biles continued that conversation when she pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics because of the twisties and underwent intensive therapy treatment for anxiety and trauma. She opens up about it in her Netflix docu-series, Simone Biles Rising. You can read more about her experiences here.
All of this set the stage for Chiles to share more about her own story.
What Chiles really excels at in the new book is sharing her silly, fun, confident personality with the world, while letting us in on her secrets, her thoughts, and her feelings. I’m That Girl really illuminates what it is like to be in the gymnastics community. She embodies the heartbreak, intensity, bullying, and love that Chiles experienced. She shares how supportive her parents have been every step of the way. She shared the experiences that led to the removal and banning of her first elite coach because of alcoholism. Meanwhile, the coach bullied and belittled Chiles, mostly in racially charged ways.
Most importantly, she shared what it was like when she wanted to quit, before she had even fulfilled her dream of competing in the Olympics, and what kept her going. She explained the advice her mom had given her: “Don’t quit on a bad day.” That advice carried her through to win gold and bronze in the Paris Olympics.
Finally, she shared how she sees her position in the gymnastics world: She pushes herself harder than anyone else because she wants to be the best. And she wants to be an inspiration, motivation, and example for the girls who look like her.
Alongside sharing what it was like learning how to do gymnastics, balancing the sport with school and friends, and overcoming awful experiences, she was fighting harder because she’s Afro-Latina. The gymnastics world has been mainly white for so long.. Therefore, the rules and norms are geared toward white women, their hair, and their bodies. Chiles struggled with fitting in and making herself stand out. So, having stood on multiple podiums alongside Black athletes—many of those podiums were all-Black for the first time—she continues to work towards more acceptance and diversity in the sport. She’s watching that change in real-time.
I’m That Girl is available everywhere books are sold, with an audiobook version read, in part, by Chiles herself.
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