Jordan Chiles’s Olympic bronze medal saga continued on Sunday, with USA Gymnastics officially appealing the ruling. Chiles, who won bronze during individual floor finals after her coach Cecile Landi successfully submitted an appeal to have her score raised, has been ordered to give her medal back after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the appeal was submitted too late.
In a statement released on Sunday, USA Gymnastics said that it has formally submitted a letter to CAS, requesting that the ruling be revised. In addition, the federation has sent video evidence showing that Landi submitted the request for an inquiry to be filed after 47 seconds, within the one-minute deadline.
The fact that Landi allegedly submitted the appeal four seconds after the deadline was the basis of the CAS ruling. Per USA Gymnastics, the time-stamped video shows that Landi did not miss the deadline, but instead first requested to file an inquiry 47 seconds after the score was posted, with a second statement occuring 55 seconds after the score was posted.
According to the statement, USA Gymnastics did not previously have access to the video before the CAS ruling, and therefore was not able to submit it earlier.
After her score was corrected, Chiles jumped from fifth to third and beat out Romanian Ana Barbosu for the bronze medal spot. Barbosu, who had already begun to celebrate, was devastated by the change. Within the next days, the Romanian gymnastics federation then filed an appeal that lead to the CAS ruling.
Source Agencies
