As Ana Bărbosu breaks her silence over the decision, Olympians including Simone Biles, Suni Lee and Adam Rippon all show support for Jordan Chiles.
SA Gymnastics claims they have video evidence that Chiles’ appeal was submitted in time in a new statement — and are asking for her bronze medal to be reinstated.
It’s now up to the Court of Arbitration for Sports to review the evidence.
Other Olympians are showing their support for Jordan Chiles, amid a ruling by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that her bronze medal would be stripped and given to Romanian athlete Ana Bărbosu.
The decision came early Sunday morning from Paris, days after the floor competition. At the time, Chiles scored a 13.666, which would have landed her in fifth place, behind Romanian gymnasts Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. But Chiles’ coaches appealed and were granted a review based on the difficulty of the routine. Her score was then elevated by one-tenth of a point, bringing her to third place.
Following an appeal from the Romanian Federation of Gymnastics, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, decided Chiles’ coaches challenged the decision 64 seconds after the scores were posted — when the deadline for such an action is exactly one minute. The ruling knocked her back down to fifth, with the bronze going to Bărbosu and Maneca-Voinea moving up to fourth.
Reacting to the ruling, Bărbosu took to Instagram on Sunday to say, “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.”
“I hope from deep of my heart that at the next Olympics, all three of us will share same podium. This is my true dream,” she continued. “This situation would not have existed if the persons in charge had respected the regulation. 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.”
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced on Sunday that they plan to appeal the decision.
“We firmly believe that Jordan rightfully earned the bronze medal, and there were critical errors in both the initial scoring by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the subsequent CAS appeal process that need to be addressed,” they wrote in a statement.
“The initial error occurred in the scoring by FIG, and the second error was during the CAS appeal process, where the USOPC was not given adequate time or notice to effectively challenge the decision. As a result, we were not properly represented or afforded the opportunity to present our case comprehensively,” it continued.
