US gymnast Jordan Chiles says ‘the person I am’ was taken from her during Olympic medal controversy

(CNN) — An emotional Jordan Chiles opened up Wednesday about how the controversy surrounding her bronze medal in the women’s artistic floor exercise at the 2024 Paris Games affected her, saying the process took away “the person I am.”

US gymnast Chiles was stripped of her first individual Olympic medal after the Romanian gymnastics team challenged the decision to revise her final score in the floor exercise to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS). CAS eventually upheld the challenge, meaning the US star’s bronze went to Romania’s Ana Bǎrbosu.

On Wednesday, Chiles said that the whole ordeal affected her deeply.

“The biggest thing that was taken from me was the recognition of who I was.
Not just my sport, but the person I am,” she told Forbes’ Power Women’s Summit, appearing emotional at times. She was given a round of applause from the watching audience as she collected her thoughts.

“To me, everything that has gone on, it’s not about the medal. 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. … I feel like I was really left in the dark.”

CNN has reached out to the International Olympic Committee, the International Gymnastics Federation and CAS for comment on Chiles’ comments.

Chiles said she had a coach who was emotionally and verbally abusive to her in 2018. She explained she “didn’t have the ability to use my voice or be heard,” adding that the situation at the Olympics brought back similar emotions.

Chiles has previously talked about her abusive coach but has never named her. Chiles spoke of the “huge toll on [her] mental health” the coach’s comments had as she considered quitting gymnastics.

“She called me fat. She said I looked like a donut. To the littlest things that people asking me, ‘Oh, you’re eating this today.’ And it’s like, ‘Well, I’m not eating because you just triggered my brain.’ And it was really, really hard on me,” Chiles told Taraji P. Henson and Tracie Jade on the “Peace of Mind with Taraji” show in 2021.

“Because I was just like, ‘This is ridiculous. Like, what have I put myself through?’ But I was also enjoying it at the same time. So it was, like, half of my brain was telling me one thing, and half of my brain was telling me another.”

How the bronze was taken away

Chiles was awarded bronze in the women’s floor exercise at the 2024 Games in August after her coaches challenged her initial score, which had placed her fifth. The win was historic – marking the first time all three positions on the Olympic podium were held by Black women. In a remarkable display of sportsmanship, Chiles suggested she and silver medalist Simone Biles playfully bow to Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who won gold. The move was captured in an iconic photo that instantly made sporting history.

The Romanian Gymnastics Federation filed an official challenge with CAS to review the circumstances surrounding the decision to revise Chiles’ score, suggesting that the challenge from the US team came four seconds after the one-minute deadline coaches are permitted.

CAS decided to uphold the challenge and it was later announced that the bronze would be awarded to Bǎrbosu of Romania.

Both the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and USA Gymnastics (USAG) have said they will appeal the decision, while also claiming that CAS initially sent “crucial communications” to the wrong email addresses, and as a result, the parties were not able to properly prepare for the hearing.

“No-one was listening to the fact that there are things that we have in place … They wanted it all to be about the Olympics and this and that,” Chiles said Wednesday. “It’s a picture. But I make history and I will always continue to make history. It’s something I rightfully did.

“I followed the rules. My coach followed the rules. We did everything that was totally, completely right. So having been left in the dark is something that I feel like they took that all away and were trying to put the name ‘gymnastics’ in front of it.”

USAG has also voiced concerns about Dr. Hamid G. Gharavi, who has represented Romania in previous arbitration cases, chairing the CAS panel. CAS says that none of the parties involved objected to Gharavi’s appointment to the panel, but USAG claims that it was never informed of his ties to Romania.

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