Jordan Chiles loses Olympic medal: The heartbreaking decision for Team USA Gymnastics and Simone Biles

Jordan Chiles has been stripped of her gymnastics bronze at the 2024 Olympic Games after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled to reinstate the result in favor of Romania, costing Team USA another medal in Paris.  Ana Barbosu had initially won bronze for the Eastern European nation, before the United States appealed Chiles’ difficulty had been graded too low following her 540 degrees mid-air split in the floor exercise final.

The International Gymnastics Federation (IGF) agreed and promoted her 13.666 up to 13.766 to take the medal away from Barbosu, whilst her compatriot Sabrina Voinea dropped to fifth as a knock-on consequence.  But the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee quickly appealed to CAS, who on Saturday, August 10 ruled the result should be reserved in favor of Barbosu as Chiles should fall back down to fifth and lost her medal.

CAS ruled that the one-minute deadline for valid appeals had already passed, meaning Team USA were too late to file and thus it should not have been considered leaving the original score to stand.  “The Federation Internationale de Gymnastique shall determine the ranking of the Final of the women’s Floor exercise,” CAS said in a statement, essentially telling the IGF to change the result. “And assign the medal(s) in accordance with the above decision.”

The Romanian Gymnastics Federation says the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the bronze medal should be returned to Ana Barbosu, as Jordan Chiles’ inquiry was late.

The FIG will make the decision on final ranking.

Sabrina Maneca-Voinea’s appeal was rejected.

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— Gymnastics Now (@Gymnastics_Now) August 10, 2024

Chiles described herself as “heartbroken” at the news that she would lose the first individual medal of her career at the age of 23, after winning golds in the team’s final in Paris and in Tokyo 2020.  “I am taking this time and removing myself from social media for my mental health,” Chiles posted to Instagram, after earlier posting broken heart emojis. “Thank you.”

Fans react to the decision

Chiles had joined the podium alongside two icons of the sport in Simone Biles (silver) and Rebeca Andrade (gold) and emotionally celebrated the success of the Brazilian by bowing down to her following her fight back against injury.  But it emerges that whilst her score was incorrectly graded and she should have finished third, her team left it too late to appeal meaning Barbosu will claim the bronze medal for 2024 leaving fans furious.

One user wrote to X.com, formerly Twitter, “Talk about stealing a medal… what a f**king joke.”  A second added, “that’s disgusting let jordan have her f**king medal.”  A third said, “I am speechless. My heart hurts for Jordan. They should have awarded both the bronze. Not retroactively punished Jordan and stripped her of her medal.”