Gymnastics officials have let Jordan Chiles and other athletes down but aren’t prepared to award three bronze medals, court says

If the Court of Arbitration for Sport had its way, Jordan of Chile would keep her bronze medal for her women's floor exercise on the Paris Olympics, and Romanian gymnasts Ana Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea would also each receive a medal.

But in a 29-page statement explaining the choice that led Olympic officials to strip Chile of its first individual medal, the CAS said the world gymnastics governing body had tousled the management of the competition and was not prepared to make amends by awarding medals to all three gymnasts, regardless that each athlete had arguments for the bronze medal.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) also didn’t record the timing of a request from Chiles' coach for her result in the course of the August 5 competition, a failure that CAS described as an “oversight.” Ultimately, the court ruled that the request was made 4 seconds after the one-minute window allowed for reviewing Chiles' result.

Wednesday's CAS statement clearly blamed FIG for the issues that arose during one of the vital dramatic moments of the Paris Games. After the competition, Romanian officials turned to the court, which had arrange a three-member panel specifically to settle disputes on the Olympic Games.

The panel stated that its review had been inadequate, which had been very painful for the athletes.

“Had the panel been able to apply equity principles, it would certainly have awarded a bronze medal to all three gymnasts in view of their performance, their good faith and the injustice and pain they had been subjected to, in circumstances where the FIG had provided no mechanism or regulation to implement the one-minute rule,” the court said.

The verdict also cited other serious problems within the execution of the ground exercise, by which Rebeca Andrade of Brazil won gold and Simone Biles of the USA won silver.

Since then, the scoring for Chiles, Bărbosu and Maneca-Voinea has grow to be one of the vital controversial and closely followed stories of the Paris Games.

“The Panel expresses the hope that the FIG will take appropriate action in this case with regard to these three exceptional athletes and also with regard to other athletes and their support staff in the future so that something like this never happens again,” the CAS wrote in its ruling.

The gymnastics association didn’t reply to requests for comment.

USA Gymnastics, which was denied the chance to present recent evidence to CAS, announced one other appeal to the Swiss Federal Court, the body that offers CAS its legitimacy for arbitration. Successful appeals to the Swiss court are rare.

USA Gymnastics said Wednesday that CAS details released earlier within the day showed that USA Gymnastics didn’t have enough time to properly present its arguments in favor of Chile and that it believes Chiles' coach Cecile Landi submitted her evaluation 47 seconds after the outcomes were released.

“We will pursue these and other cases on appeal as we continue to seek justice for Jordan Chiles,” USA Gymnastics said.

Chiles spoke directly in regards to the controversy for the primary time on Thursday. She posted on X: “I will tackle this challenge like others – and do everything I can to ensure justice is done.”

She continues to hope that her bronze medal will really remain bronze.

“I believe that at the end of this journey, the people in power will do the right thing,” Chiles said.

In a separate statement on Wednesday, the CAS rejected a New York Times report that a conflict of interest had arisen throughout the panel itself because its chairman, Hamid G. Gharavi, had represented Romania in separate arbitration proceedings for nearly a decade.

Gharavi serves as Romania's legal adviser in disputes handled by the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, The Times reported.

The CAS stated that it “condemns the outrageous statements published in certain US media which, without knowledge of the foregoing and before examining the reasoned award, alleged that the panel, and in particular its Chair, were biased due to other professional obligations or for reasons of nationality.”

The court stated that Gharavi's participation in gymnastics was not challenged in the course of the arbitration proceedings, “so it can be assumed that all parties were satisfied with the hearing of their case by this panel.”

USA Gymnastics said it was not aware of any details about Gharavi or some other judge, “nor have we seen the information to date.”

At the center of the competition dispute is a request from Landi, Chiles' coach, for the evaluation of Chiles' floor exercise. Chiles initially scored 13.666, placing fifth. She was the last of nine gymnasts to compete, which gave her only one minute to make a request, in line with FIG rules.

The judges immediately allowed the examination and increased Chiles' rating by 0.1 to 13.766, putting her ahead of Bărbosu and Maneca-Voinea, who each scored 13.700. (Bărbosu had a bonus over Maneca-Voinea on account of a greater execution rating, meaning the judges believed she had a cleaner routine.)

In certainly one of the more emotional scenes of the Games, Chiles screamed for joy while Bărbosu, who thought she had won bronze, dropped her Romanian flag in shock and left the court crying.

However, within the Romanian Gymnastics Federation's appeal before the CAS, it was stated that the timing of the investigation had come too late.
After the CAS announced its provisional decision on Saturday, the FIG modified the ultimate rankings and the International Olympic Committee announced that it might re-award Chile's medal to Bărbosu.

According to the Romanian federation, Bărbosu will receive her medal at a ceremony on Friday.

In its ruling announced on Wednesday, the CAS stated that FIG had no mechanism to instantly determine whether a request was late, even when it was submitted electronically.

Donatella Sacchi, chair of the FIG Women's Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee, said that when the request was received, “the information showed no indication that it had been received late.”

According to CAS, it was reasonable for Sacchi to assume that the investigation was timely as there was no indication that it was delayed.

“If the FIG had introduced such a mechanism or regulation, much grief would have been avoided,” CAS said.

FIG also couldn’t reveal the name of the one that conducted the investigation because that person was appointed by the local organizers, Sacchi said.

Landi appeared on the hearing as a witness and said she was aware of the one-minute rule and “felt she would have conducted the interview as quickly as she could.”

CAS continued: “She could not say with certainty whether she had made the request within or outside the one-minute time limit, as everything had happened in great haste.”