Jordan Chiles Isn’t Done Fighting for Her Bronze Medal
Jordan Chiles is not letting her Olympic medal be taken without a fight. The American gymnast whose bronze medal was revoked back in August is now appealing her case to Switzerland’s Supreme Court.
During the women’s floor exercise final, Chiles originally came in fifth place behind two Romanian gymnasts. Her coach, Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, filed an inquiry with the judges, claiming that they hadn’t scored one of Chiles’s leaps. The judges agreed and amended her score, which bumped her up to third place. Their decision led to a historic moment on the podium, where each spot was held by a Black woman for the first time in the history of the sport.
Days later, the Romanian delegation argued that Canqueteau-Landi had missed the cutoff for filing an inquiry by four seconds. The Court of Arbitration for Sport agreed, and declined to hear USA Gymnastics’ appeal. The bronze medal was reallocated to Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu in a special ceremony in Bucharest.
Now, Chiles’s attorneys have filed an appeal with the Swiss Federal Tribunal to overturn the ruling made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. They argue that the CAS violated Chiles’s “right to be heard” when they refused to consider video evidence that purportedly showed her inquiry being submitted on time. They also argue that there was a conflict of interest: Hamid Gharavi, the president of the CAS arbitration panel, has acted as counsel for Romania and was actively representing the country when Chiles’s medal was revoked.
“Jordan Chiles’ appeals present the international community with an easy legal question — will everyone stand by while an Olympic athlete who has done only the right thing is stripped of her medal because of fundamental unfairness in an ad-hoc arbitration process? The answer to that question should be no. Every part of the Olympics, including the arbitration process, should stand for fair play,” Chiles’s attorney Maurice M. Suh said in a statement.
In August, after her medal had been revoked, Chiles shared a statement to Instagram. In it, she wrote, “I will approach this challenge as I have others — and will make every effort to ensure that justice is done. I believe that at the end of this journey, the people in control will do the right thing.”
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