Jordan Chiles’s bronze medal from the 2024 Paris Olympics is still in limbo after three agonizing days of contention among Team USA, Team Romania, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
On Sunday evening, Team USA revealed that they had formally appealed CAS’s decision to strip the 23-year-old of her Olympic bronze medal, awarding it instead to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu.
“USA Gymnastics on Sunday formally submitted a letter and video evidence to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, conclusively establishing that Head Coach Cecile Landi’s request to file an inquiry was submitted 47 seconds after the publishing of the score, within the one-minute deadline required by [Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, or FIG] rule,” the statement reads, per People.
The International Olympic Committee is asking Chiles to return her bronze medal from the women's floor final.
Chiles secured the bronze medal for Team USA on Monday, August 5, after her coach, Cecile Landi, made an inquiry with the judges to adjust the difficulty of Chiles’s routine. Upon review, and with reconsideration of the skills which determine the difficulty level, judges determined that Chiles’s score was 13.766, not 13.666, as they had first posted. With the corrected score, Chiles moved from fifth to third place, ahead of Romanian gymnasts Ana Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, who both received a score of 13.700. (Barbosu eclipsed Maneca-Voinea in the tie-breaker.)
Rebeca Andrade of Brazil was awarded the gold medal, while Simone Biles took home the silver for Team USA.
Four days after the competition, on Friday, August 9, Romania's Olympic Committee appealed the correction with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), claiming that Landi had not submitted her inquiry within the one-minute deadline which is required by FIG. Per the complaint, Landi was four seconds over the deadline. In its August 11 statement, however, Team USA says that video evidence they have submitted clearly “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.”
“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,” the statement continues. It is now up to CAS to determine whether or not Jordan Chiles’s bronze medal will be reinstated.
The messy back-and-forth has apparently taken a toll on Chiles’s mental health. Following CAS’s initial decision to award the medal to Bărbosu, Chiles shared a series of broken-heart emojis on Instagram. She also shared that she would be taking a break from social media to focus on her mental health.
