US gymnast Jordan Chiles has spoken about the emotional fallout after she was stripped of the bronze medal she won at this summer’s Paris Olympics.
“The biggest thing that was taken from me was, it was the recognition of who I was. Not just my sport, but the person I am,” she said, her voice breaking at times with emotion, during an appearance at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit on Wednesday.
Chiles was initially given bronze in the floor exercise in Paris after an appeal over how the judges scored her routine was accepted and she moved from fifth to third place. However, the Romanian Olympic Committee said the appeal had been filed four seconds after the one-minute time limit. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) then voided Chiles’s appeal and the IOC ordered the American to return the medal. Romania’s Ana Barbosu was promoted to third while Chiles dropped back to fifth. The 23-year-old American received significant abuse on social media, some of it racist.
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“It’s not about the medal,” said Chiles on Wednesday. “It’s about my skin color. It’s about the fact there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete. And I felt like everything has been stripped. I felt like when I was back in 2018 where I did lose the love of the sport, I lost it again.”
USA Gymnastics submitted evidence it said showed Chiles’s appeal had been within the time limit. But Cas dismissed the appeal and said its decision cannot be changed “even when conclusive new evidence is presented”.
Chiles said that being punished despite following procedures had been hard to process.
“I followed the rules. My coach followed the rules. We did everything that was totally, completely right,” Chiles said.
Former Olympic champion Nadia Comaneci said that the saga had taken its toll on all the gymnasts involved. “I can’t believe we play with athletes mental health and emotions like this … Let’s protect them,” Comaneci posted on X last month.
Chiles said the support she has received from those close to her and the general public had helped.
“It’s definitely been really hard to really, truly see all the love and support,” Chiles said. “Looking out here, seeing everybody, I can feel it now. But at first it was really hard to really take that in, because of how badly my heart was broken.
“I do appreciate every single person that has been able to come out and say what they needed to say,” she said. “Whether it was through social media, whether it was through news outlets, whether it was through just people texting me, I do appreciate it so much.”
The fallout from the saga also tarnished what had been a touching moment at the medal ceremony where Chiles was initially awarded bronze. Chiles and her US teammate, Simone Biles, knelt to honor Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who won gold in the event. It had been the first time in the Olympic floor exercise that all three medalists were Black.
For her part Chiles, who also won gold in the team event in Paris, said her fight will continue.
“It’s not over,” Chiles said. “Because at this rate, it’s not really about the medal. It’s about my peace and my justice.”
Source Agencies
