US gymnast Jordan Chiles says ‘the person I am’ was taken from her during Olympic medal controversy :- Jordan Chiles talked about how the debate over her bronze medal in the women’s artistic floor exercise at the 2024 Paris Games made her feel on Wednesday. She said that the process took away “the person I am.”
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Chiles lost her first individual Olympic medal when the Romanian gymnastics team took the choice to change her final score in the floor exercise to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
In the end, CAS upheld the challenge, which meant that Ana BɎrbosu of Romania won third place instead of the US star.
“Not only my sport, but also the person I am,” she said at the Forbes Power Women’s Summit, where she looked upset at times. The people watching gave her a round of praise while she thought things over.
“For me, it’s not about the medal after everything that’s happened.” It has to do with the color of my skin. The point is that there were events that led to the person becoming an athlete. And I felt like everything was taken away. I thought I had lost my love of the sport again, just like I did in 2018. … I really feel like I was not told anything.
CNN has asked the International Olympic Committee, the International Gymnastics Federation, and CAS what they think about what Chiles said.
In 2018, Chiles said she had a teacher who talked and acted badly toward her. She said that she “didn’t have the power to use my voice or be heard,” and she said that the Olympics made her feel the same way.
Chiles has talked about her abusive teacher before, but she has never named her. Chiles said that the coach’s words had a “huge toll on [her] mental health” and made her think about giving up gymnastics.
“She told me I was fat.” I heard that I look like a donut. People would ask me, “Oh, you’re eating this today?” about the smallest things. It’s like, “Well, I’m not going to eat because you just made me feel bad.” Chiles told Taraji P. Henson and Tracie Jade on the 2021 show “Peace of Mind with Taraji” that it was “really, really hard on me.”
This made me think, ‘This is silly.'” I mean, what did I do to deserve this? However, I was also having fun with it. Like, half of my brain was telling me one thing and the other half was telling me something else.
How the metal was taken away
Chiles won bronze in the women’s floor exercise at the 2024 Summer Olympics in August after her coaches questioned her first score, which put her in fifth place.
It was a historic win because all three spots on the Olympic podium were held by Black women for the first time. In an amazing show of kindness.
Chiles advised that she and Simone Biles, who won a silver medal, bow to Rebeca Andrade, who won a gold medal from Brazil. The move was caught in a famous picture that became sports history right away.
The Romanian Gymnastics Federation officially challenged CAS to look into the reasons behind the decision to change Chiles’ score. They said that the US team’s challenge came four seconds after the one-minute limit that coaches are allowed.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and USA Gymnastics (USAG) both said they would review the decision, but USAG also said that CAS sent the wrong decision.
Nobody paid attention to the fact that we already had plans in place… Chiles said Wednesday, “They wanted it all to be about the Olympics and this and that.”
“I did what the rules said.” My teacher did what the rules said. Each and every thing we did was exactly right. I feel like they took away all of that by leaving me in the dark and trying to give it the name “gymnastics.”
The USAG is also worried about Dr. Hamid Gharavi, who is in charge of the CAS panel and has acted for Romania in past arbitration cases. CAS says that none of the parties were against Gharavi being put on the panel.
