The American gymnast has filed an appeal to the Swiss Federal Supreme Court to overturn a decision that stripped her of her bronze medal in the women's gymnastics floor event.
- September 17, 2024
AceShowbiz - Jordan Chiles, who won a gold medal as part of Team USA in the women's artistic team all-around competition, is appealing a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that removed her bronze medal in the individual floor exercise. Chiles' lawyers argue that CAS "violated her fundamental 'right to be heard' by refusing to consider video evidence" that shows her inquiry was submitted on time.
Additionally, Chiles' lawyers allege that CAS president Hamid G. Gharavi had a "serious conflict of interest" as he had been counsel for Romania for nearly a decade and was representing the country at the time of the incident.
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), along with USA Gymnastics, have expressed support for Chiles' appeal, emphasizing that "every part of the Olympics, including the arbitration process, should stand for fair play."
The controversy arose after Chiles' coach filed an appeal over a scoring error, which boosted her score by a tenth of a point to 13.766. However, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation appealed to CAS, which ruled that the inquiry was filed four seconds too late, dropping Chiles' score back to 13.666.
Chiles has disputed this finding and submitted video footage that, according to her lawyers, "unequivocally proves that the inquiry was submitted on time." She has also requested that Gharavi be removed from any future hearings.
Chiles' appeal presents an important question: "Will everyone stand by while an Olympic athlete who has done only the right thing is stripped of her medal because of fundamental unfairness in an ad-hoc arbitration process?" As Chiles maintains, "I followed the rules. My coach followed the rules. We did everything totally, completely right."
