American gymnast Jordan Chiles may lose the Olympic bronze medal

American gymnast Jordan Chiles may have to hand back 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, August 5, Chiles initially posted a score of 13.666, placing her fifth, just behind Romania’s Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. The two Romanian gymnasts finished with a matching score of 13.700; Barbosu thought she had secured the bronze via a tiebreak – a higher execution score.

However, Team USA gymnastics coach Cecile Canqueteau-Landi filed an appeal on the floor, arguing that Chiles’ score was incorrect due to the difficulty of the routine. 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, ruling that Team USA’s appeal came one minute and four seconds after Chiles’ score was posted. (According to the ruleBecause Chiles was the last athlete to compete in the event, her coaches had only one minute to submit the inquiry, while the rest of the field had time until the next gymnast’s score was shown to submit their verbal appeal to serve.)

Therefore, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) restored the original score after Saturday’s court ruling, returning Barbosu to third, Maneca-Voinea fourth and Chiles fifth.

This is what FIG spokesperson Meike Behrensen says The Associated Press that “the redistribution of medals is the responsibility of the IOC [International Olympic Committee].”

“We are devastated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s ruling on women’s floor exercise,” said USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. said in a joint statement. “The investigation into the difficulty of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercises was submitted in good faith and, in our opinion, in accordance with FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring.”

The statement continued: “Throughout the appeal process, Jordan has been subjected to consistent, completely unfounded and extremely hurtful attacks on social media. No athlete should be subjected to such treatment. We condemn the attacks and those who carry out, support or incite them. We commend Jordan for conducting herself with integrity both on and off the competition floor, and we continue to support her.”

Earlier Saturday, Chiles posted an Instagram Story with four broken-heart emojis and then announced that she was taking time and “removing herself from social media” for her mental health. Her teammates Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee were among the athletes who showed their support for her amid the dramatic circumstances.

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

Biles reposted Lee’s statement and shared a post 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 champion! We love you!”

Monday’s floor exercise final came at the end of the artistic gymnastics competition, in which Chiles and Team USA captured the gold medal — part of their “redemption tour” after the turbulent 2021 Tokyo Games, where they won silver. On floor, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won the gold medal (with a score of 14.166), while Biles earned the silver (with a score of 14.133). Together with Chiles, the trio achieved the first all-black podium in the history of women’s Olympic gymnastics.

As Andrade climbed to the top spot on the podium, Biles and Chiles bowed to her and the spontaneous display of sportsmanship immediately went viral, with athletes and entertainers sharing photos and videos of the moment on social media. Even the Musêe du Louvre got in on the action, invoking the “hang it in the Louvre” meme, which is often applied to moments deemed so beautiful that they deserve to be commemorated in the museum.

At the press conference after the medal ceremony, the American gymnasts revealed that the salute was Chiles’ idea.

“She is an icon, a legend herself,” Chiles said of Andrade. “I feel like recognition is something everyone should do when it comes to someone who has put in the work, put in the dedication… Why don’t we just give her her flowers?”