PARIS — American gymnast Jordan Chiles was stripped of her bronze medal in the floor exercise on Saturday after the Court of Arbitration for Sport concluded that the appeal of her score was filed after the one-minute allowable time limit.
As such, Chiles’ score was dropped from 13.766 to 13.666, leaving Romania’s Ana Barbosa in third place with a score of 13.700.
It is a significant decision based on the most arcane of rules.
Chiles’ coach, Cecile Landi, originally filed an appeal of Chiles score when she believed that the judges failed to properly score Chiles' degree of difficulty. Landi believed the judges failed to notice Chiles performed a split leap — or a tour jete full in gymnastics parlance — and gave her a 5.800 difficulty score rather than a proper 5.900.
The judges, upon review, agreed and elevated Chiles’ score which moved her from fifth place to third.
It was a crushing blow to Barbosa, who had begun to celebrate her medal and was waving a Romanian flag to cheering fans when the appeal decision dropped her to fourth.
The Romanians cried foul, including legendary Olympic champion Nadia Comaneci, who said it was unfair and mentally unhealthy to Barbosa how the decision played out.
Now the CAS has ruled that Landi did not file the inquiry in a quick enough manner. It neither overruled the appeal decision nor said that Chiles’ new score was inaccurate, it simply pointed to a rule that requires all inquiries to be filed verbally within one minute of the end of a routine.
“The inquiry submitted on behalf of Ms. Jordan Chiles in the Final of the women’s floor exercise was raised after the conclusion of the one-minute deadline provided by article 8.5 of the 2024 FIG technical regulations and is determined to be without effect.” the CAS ruling reads.
USA Gymnastics blasted the decision, noting the precise timing of the inquiry is not nearly as important as getting the actual score correct. They condemned online attacks against Chiles after she jumped ahead of Barbosa.
“We are devastated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling regarding women’s floor exercise. 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,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement.
“Throughout the appeal process, Jordan has been subject to consistent, utterly baseless and extremely hurtful attacks on social media,” USAG said. “No athlete should be subject to such treatment. We condemn the attacks and those who engage, support or instigate them. We commend Jordan for conducting herself with integrity both on and off the competition floor, and we continue to stand by and support her.”
Chiles will leave Paris with a gold medal in the team event, but had expressed particular pride in winning her first individual Olympic medal as well.
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