U.S. Gymnast Jordan Chiles May Lose Olympic Bronze Medal

U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles may have to return the bronze medal she won at the 2024 Paris Olympics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled in favor of an appeal filed by the Romanian gymnastics team.

During the women’s floor exercise final on Monday, Aug. 5, Chiles initially earned a score of 13.666, which placed her fifth, right behind Romania’s Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. The two Romanian gymnasts finished with matching scores of 13.700; Barbosu thought she had secured the bronze via a tiebreaker — a higher execution score.

However, U.S. coach Cecile Canqueteau-Landi filed an on-floor appeal, arguing that the score was incorrect due to the routine’s level of difficulty. The judges agreed and adjusted Chiles’ score by 0.1, which was enough to surpass Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea.

After the medal ceremony, the Romanian team filed its own appeal, noting that Team USA’s appeal occurred outside the one-minute time limit to question the judges’ scores.

CAS agreed with the Romanians’ point about the time limit, finding that Team USA’s appeal came one minute and four seconds after Chiles’ score was posted. (By rule, because Chiles was the final athlete to compete on the event, her coaches had just one minute to file the inquiry, while the rest of the field had until the score of the following gymnast was shown to make their verbal appeal.)

Therefore, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) restored the original scoring following the court’s ruling, placing Barbosu back in third, Maneca-Voinea fourth and Chiles fifth.

FIG spokesperson Meike Behrensen told The Associated Press that “reallocation of medals is the responsibility of the IOC [International Olympic Committee].”

“We are devastated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling regarding women’s floor exercise,” USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee said in a statement. “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.”

The statement continued: “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.”

Earlier Saturday, Chiles posted an Instagram story with four broken heart emoji and subsequently announced she was taking time and “removing herself from social media” for her mental health. Her teammates Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee have been among the athletes to share their support for her amid the dramatic circumstances.

“All this talk about the athlete, what about the judges?? Completely unacceptable,” Lee posted to Instagram. “This is awful and I’m gutted for Jordan. … [You] have all my flowers and you will always be an Olympic champion.”

Biles reposted Lee’s statement and shared a message of her own, captioning a photo of her and Chiles in the emotional moments after the floor exercise results were announced, “Sending you so much love Jordan. Keep your chip up Olympic champ! We love you!”