Romanian Prime Minister Boycotting Olympics Closing Ceremony Over Jordan Chiles’ Controversy

It was clear in the moments after Jordan Chiles’ score was changed in the women’s floor final on Monday at the 2024 Paris Olympics that there would be backlash.

Chiles’ coaches filed an inquiry to have her score reassessed after they claimed the judges didn’t give one of her elements the proper degree of difficulty. Her score was changed, bumping her from fifth to third place and jumping above Romania’s Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Voinea and causing quite a bit of controversy.

The score change didn’t sit right with a lot of people with Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu being one. In a Facebook post published on Tuesday, Ciolacu announced he wouldn’t be attending the closing ceremony of the Olympics on Aug. 11 in protest of Chiles’ score change.

“I decided not to participate in the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics after the scandalous situation in gymnastics where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable way,” Ciolacu wrote . “To withdraw a medal earned by honest work on the basis of an appeal, which neither the coaches nor the top technicians understand, is totally unacceptable!”

When the score change was announced, Barbosu was celebrating with a Romanian flag wrapped around her arms. Once the reality of what happened set in, she dropped the flag to the ground and had to be consoled by one of her coaches as she left the floor with tears in her eyes.

Ciolacu stated that the judges’ decision to alter Chiles’ score shocked “hundreds of millions” of viewers and was a “blatant injustice” toward Barbosu and Voinea. He even went as far as to say there was something fundamentally wrong with the Olympics competition system.

Related: Controversial Score Change Gives Jordan Chiles First Individual Olympic Medal

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