A United States Olympic athlete has been stripped of her medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and people are not happy about it.
Earlier this week, Team USA women’s gymnastics star Jordan Chiles earned the bronze medal with a third-place finish in the women’s floor final, but that medal has now been stripped from her after a controversial ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Chiles initially finished fifth in the event with a score of 13.666, but her score was bumped up by 0.1 following an inquiry from her coach that exposed a scoring error regarding one of her jumps, which had been given a lower difficulty grade by mistake. The new score gave her the bronze medal over Romania’s Ana Barbosu, who had already been celebrating her apparent bronze medal victory.
However, following an appeal from Romania, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the inquiry from the United States was “untimely,” as it came four seconds after the limit of one minute to submit an inquiry. So on that technicality, Chiles will have her medal stripped and given to Barbosu, even though her score was technically higher.
Needless to say, Team USA was not happy with the ruling.
Joint Statement from USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee regarding the CAS decision on the women’s floor final:
CAS Decision: https://t.co/KR6DYsfxEk pic.twitter.com/r1e6QKmKA4
— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) August 10, 2024
“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. 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.”
The decision sparked outrage on social media, as well.
I think this Romanian successful week-long appeal of Team USA's four-second-too-long appeal to revoke Jordan Chiles' medal will ensure that every team will auto-appeal every attempt from every athlete from this point forward.
A very bad look for CAS that could break the sport https://t.co/mZWDFFr6LD
— Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718@journa.host (@AlexIp718) August 10, 2024
So because of bad work by the officials, Jordan has been flooded with racist attacks for a weeks and now loses her bronze medal. This is HORRIBLE, and everyone involved in the decisions that let this happen should be ashamed of themselves. DO YOUR JOBS. https://t.co/gIQdyC6MCY
— Rachel Taenzler (@racheltaenzler) August 10, 2024
mind you it took CAS 2 years to revoke russia’s team medal when one of their athletes literally tested positive for doping https://t.co/cISKeMhogA
— mimi (@meemskate) August 10, 2024
This decision is heartbreaking for all involved. Athletes shouldn’t be punished for judges mistakes. They should award a 2nd Bronze, not strip Jordan Chiles of hers. Chiles has been an absolute rockstar and role model for younger gymnasts through this entire process. https://t.co/dxRnwUWTlI
— Ali Peek Wilbur (@Ali_Peek) August 10, 2024
FOUR SECONDS late is wild. the argument “you took an entire 64 seconds instead of 60 to submit an inquiry that resulted in judges determining that your original score was incorrect, so we’re going to revert your score back to the incorrect one” just makes FIG look incompetent https://t.co/qFkGOoSJuJ
— sambo-70 anti 🌦 🦚 (@fuguesque) August 10, 2024
https://twitter.com/scjalbs/status/182233894348588668?clear
Had the judges scored Chiles’ routine correctly in the first place, this would never have been an issue.
[CAS]
