Jordan Chiles says Olympic gymnastics controversy has ‘taken away the recognition of who I was’
For 14 seconds, Jordan Chiles paused and looked down to collect her thoughts and emotions.
The question — about what Chiles felt she lost when the International Olympic Committee stripped her of her bronze medal in the women’s Olympic floor exercise — forced her to stop mid-answer. The audience at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit in New York applauded as she recovered her composure and put the microphone back to her mouth.
Holding back tears, Chiles said she lost more than a bronze medal to the controversy that dominated the end of the Paris Games last month. The controversy “wasn’t about the medal,” she said, but about other realities that left her feeling “stripped.”
“The biggest thing that was taken away from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am,” Chiles said.
“It’s about the color of my skin,” Chiles added. “It’s about the fact that there were things that led to this position as an athlete.”
Wednesday’s interview, which came before Chiles performed on MTV’s Video Music Awards that evening, was the gymnast’s most extensive commentary since the IOC announced it was re-awarding Chiles’ bronze to Romania’s Ana Bărbosu following an appeal by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.
In the floor final on August 5, Chiles originally finished fifth but was promoted to third after her coach, Cecile Landi, successfully filed an appeal to increase her score by one-tenth of a point. Five days later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that Landi’s appeal should be invalidated because it came four seconds past the one-minute time limit for such an appeal. Following the ruling, the International Gymnastics Federation dropped Chiles to fifth place and the IOC re-awarded her medal. USA Gymnastics has said it will appeal the CAS decision to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.
Chiles said she felt “left in the dark” and unsupported during the controversy. She felt like her voice wasn’t heard during the appeals process and compared her emotions to 2018, when she said an emotionally and verbally abusive coach made her lose her love for gymnastics.
“Nobody listened to the fact that there are things that we have,” Chiles said. “There are things that we have that should have been seen, but were not taken to fruition.”
“The biggest thing that was taken away from me was the recognition of who I was, not just my sport, but the person I am.”
Olympic gymnast @ChilesJordan spoke with @MoiraForbes about her bronze medal being taken away from the 2024 #PowerWomensSummit. photo.twitter.com/Fjett19aDY
— ForbesWomen (@ForbesWomen) September 11, 2024
USA Gymnastics has argued that it has video evidence showing that Landi filed the appeal 47 seconds after Chiles’ score was announced and 13 seconds before the review period closed, and that it did not have enough time to properly present its case to CAS.
Chiles previously called the decision “unfair.”
“(It) is a huge blow, not only to me, but to everyone who has supported my journey,” Chiles said in a post on X on August 15. “To add to the sadness, the uncalled for racist attacks on social media are wrong and extremely hurtful.”
Nearly a month later, Chiles claims she and her coach followed the rules and did “everything that was completely and utterly correct” during the floor exercise.
“I made history and I will always continue to make history,” said Chiles, who won gold in the women’s Olympic team competition.
Chiles, who is returning to UCLA for the upcoming college gymnastics season, was presented with a bronze bell at the VMAs by Flavor Flav, who promised to make one herself after her medal was stripped.
Chiles receives a bronze bell from Flavor Flav on Wednesday. (Noam Galai/Getty Images for MTV)
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(Photo: Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)
