United States gymnastics star Jordan Chiles was stripped of her bronze medal this week, and now the opponent who was awarded it in her place has broken her silence.
At first, Chiles was scored as finishing fifth in the women’s floor event with a score of 13.666, but her score was then bumped up by 0.1 following an inquiry from her coach that revealed that her routine was scored incorrectly by the judges. 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 Chiles was stripped of her medal and it was given to Barbosu, even though Chiles’ accurate score was higher.
Barbosu has remained silent throughout much of the controversy, but she recently published a message to Chiles and her teammate Sabrina Maneca-Voinea – who tied her Barbosu’s score, but Barbosu won the tiebreaker due to the difficulty of her routine.
“Sabrina, Jordan, my thoughts are with you. I know what you are feeling, because I’ve been through the same. But I know you’ll come back stronger,” Barbosu wrote on her Instagram stories, according to People.
“I hope from deep of my heart that at the next Olympics, all three of us will share [the] same podium,” she continued. “This is my true dream!”
“This situation would not have existed if the persons in charge had respected the regulation,” she concluded. “We, athletes are not to be blamed, and the hate directed to us is painful. I wanted to end this edition of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 in the spirit of Olympism, the true value of the world.”
It’s certainly a tough situation for everyone involved.
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