Prairie High School grad helps secure gold for Team USA in gymnastics

A Prairie High School grad helped the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team win an Olympic gold in the women’s team final on Tuesday, July 30, in the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Jordan Chiles, Prairie High School class of 2019, began training at Naydenov Gymnastics in Vancouver when she was just 6 years old. Prior to the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, where she helped the team win silver, the Falcon senior competed in 2019 as a member of the senior U.S. National Team and trained for 32 hours a week at Naydenov with a dream of competing at the 2020 Olympics, according to previous reporting by The Reflector. She left the Vancouver area in 2019 to Spring, Texas, to train with fellow Olympian Simone Biles at the World Champions Centre.

After she qualified for her second U.S. Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team this year, Chiles earned the fourth-best qualifying score in the all-around qualifier on Sunday, July 28, but fellow teammates Biles and Sunisa Lee topped her out to represent the country in the Aug. 1 all-around finals due to a two-per country rule in the Olympics.

In the July 30 team finals, Chiles scored 14.4 on vault, 14.366 on uneven bars, 12.733 on the balance beam and a 13.966 for her floor routine. Her efforts helped the United States reclaim its gold status in the Olympics with a team score of 171.296, a lead of 5.802 over silver-medal winner Italy. On Aug. 1, Biles and Lee locked in two more medals for Team USA. Biles earned her second all-around Olympic gold medal, while Lee secured bronze.

Chiles’ Olympic run was not over though, as she competed in the floor event final on Monday, Aug. 5, but results were not available ahead of press time.