Jordan Chiles looking at the bronze medal that she might get stripped of. Tom Weller/VOIGT/GettyImages
The women's gymnastics floor final at the Paris Olympics produced an indelible image of the reality of sport: Jordan Chiles, having just learned that she would earn a bronze medal, jumped for joy and embraced her coach.
She ran past Romanian gymnast Ana Maria Bărbosu, who stood on the floor in shock, a Romanian flag draped around her back. The same inquiry that had granted Chiles the bronze stripped it from Bărbosu, who would have won her country's first women's gymnastics medal since 2012. When she saw the new result, she dropped the flag and brought her hand to her mouth.
Following an appeal from the Romanian Gymnastics Federation with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, this result has been reversed. As of yet, it's unclear how the medals will be reallocated, if at all. While Bărbosu's emotional response was difficult to swallow, this new decision—made five days after the competition ended—flies in the face of fairness, and only adds insult to injury for the athletes.
By all accounts, the athletes and coaches acted in good faith during the competition. After Chiles completed her floor routine—the last routine in the final—and placed fifth with a 13.666, her coaches filed an inquiry to have her difficulty score raised. In a not uncommon occurrence at the highest levels of the sport, the inquiry was awarded. Chiles' score was raised .1, giving her the bronze medal. Both Bărbosu and compatriot Sabrina Maneca-Voinea had received scores of 13.700, with Bărbosu winning the tiebreaker; Chiles' successful inquiry bumped Bărbosu off the podium.
The decision was immediately controversial, as are many decisions made in the sport. But this time, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation took their outrage one step further, filing an application with CAS on behalf of the athletes.
Today, CAS announced its ruling: Chiles' coach had filed the inquiry too late to be considered—four seconds too late, to be exact—and her original score of 13.666 should be reinstated. The international gymnastics federation (FIG), CAS ruled, will decide how to reallocate medals, a responsibility the FIG has now punted to the IOC. The FIG released a statement announcing that the rankings have been amended; incredibly, it listed Bărbosu's score incorrectly (the statement has since been corrected).
To be sure, the officials in charge of ensuring that the final was decided fairly didn't do their jobs here. For one thing, Maneca-Voinea was unduly penalized .1 for stepping out of bounds; replay footage shows that her foot never left the field of play (CAS declined to raise her score .1 points). And, crucially, they allowed Chiles' coach Cecile Landi to file an inquiry after the deadline.
These errors should never have been made in the first place. Not only do they turn the sport into a laughingstock, they also play with the athletes' emotions, as gymnastics legend Nadia Comaneci pointed out following the competition.
"I can't believe we play with athletes [sic] mental health and emotions like this," wrote Comaneci on X. "Let's protect them."
She was right to point out that Bărbosu's situation sucked. But gymnastics judges make incorrect rulings all the time, including with line calls. That's what inquiries are for. Those inquiries—and the incredible disappointment they sometimes cause—are simply a part of the sport. When Aly Raisman won bronze on beam in 2012 following an inquiry at the tail end of the final, she bumped Romania's Cătălina Ponor off the podium.
As many have pointed out on the gymnastics forums, CAS ruled on a rule error, not a judging one. Still, for this decision to be made days after the competition, when athletes are already at home celebrating their accomplishments, is unacceptable. With few exceptions, in the past medals have only been reallocated in gymnastics in cases of doping or age falsification. And the allegation that Chiles' inquiry was filed four seconds late is suspiciously convenient for Romania.
And Comaneci's concern about mental health is misguided. What about Chiles' mental health in the wake of this controversy? After the floor final, Chiles said that she didn't even know an inquiry had been filed on her behalf. But USA Gymnastics said in a statement that Chiles "has been subject to consistent, utterly baseless and extremely hurtful attacks on social media." On Instagram, she announced that she's leaving social media.
It's up to the IOC now to decide who gets medals. But it doesn't matter—with the Romanian federation's actions, and the FIG's ineptitude, what started as a disappointment for Bărbosu has turned into a travesty for fairness in the sport, not to mention emotional turmoil for the athletes. So much for mental health.
