In 1972, the U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team took a one-point lead over the Soviet Union in the gold medal game in Munich with three seconds remaining. A chaotic sequence of eventsThese second three games were played three times. The third time was the charm, at least for the Soviets, who won by one point.
For 52 years, American athletes have refused to collect their silver medals, which have not been claimed in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the International Olympic Committee has refused to reconsider the outcome of the Games.
However, the IOC has asked American gymnast Jordan Chiles to return a bronze medal due to another timing issue – this time, a full bronze medal. four seconds.
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Under gymnastics rules, a request for an inquiry must be submitted within one minute of a score being posted. The United States filed a request for an inquiry into Chile’s score, arguing that the judges made an objectively demonstrable error in one aspect of her floor exercise. The request was granted and Chiles was awarded the bronze medal. But Romania’s gymnastics federation appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), arguing that the request was filed 64 seconds after Chile’s score was posted. CAS agreed and IOC asks Chile to return his supposedly ill-gotten bronze medal.
The irony in Appeal from Romania to the Court of Appeal of Romania The federation also attempted to appeal a 0.1 point penalty imposed on Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, although the time of the appeal can be measured by a calendar and not a stopwatch. CAS dismissed that aspect of Romania’s appeal in a single sentence.
But Romanian gymnastics officials were not asking Chile to return its bronze medal, but rather to award duplicate bronze medals to Maneca-Voinea and Ana Barbosu, who the IOC has now declared a bronze medalist.
And there is indeed a precedent for awarding duplicate medals when refereeing issues become too complicated to resolve. That precedent was set in 2002, when a scandal involving referees Spread out all the way Allegations of Russian mafia interference prompted the IOC to award a duplicate gold medal to the Canadian figure skating pair of Jamie Sale and David Pelletier.
Another precedent to consider: Jim Thorpe, whose name is mentioned in any discussion of the greatest athletes of all time, was stripped of his gold medals in the 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon after officials learned that he had earned about $30 a month playing minor league baseball, thus contravening the Games’ amateurism rules. He lost the gold medals even though the 60-day deadline to appeal to strip athletes of their medals had long since passed—about four months. Just 110 years later, Thorpe was declared the sole winner of those events..
The argument against Chile keeping the bronze is that rules are rules and the United States simply submitted its request four seconds too late.
Or yes?
The USOPC is arguing that he was not given time to prepare an adequate defense. On Sunday afternoon, USA Gymnastics dropped a bombshellclaiming time-stamped evidence that the investigation was indeed was requested within one minute of the result being published – to be more precise, 47 seconds.
“The video material was not available to USA Gymnastics prior to the court’s decision and therefore USAG did not have the opportunity to present it previously,” USAG’s statement read.
Even if CAS, the IOC and the International Gymnastics Federation find fault with this new evidence, they are in the awkward position of demanding the return of a medal even after the judges concluded that Chiles was indeed the gymnast who performed the third-best routine on the floor exercise. And they have put two innocent athletes in a bind. Barbosu was clearly devastated when her celebrations were cut short by the announcement of Chiles’ successful investigation, and now the American has retreated from social media to protect her mental health as she wonders whether she will really have to mail a bronze medal to France, Switzerland or Romania.
If the new evidence is confirmed, the governing bodies will have no choice but to let Chile keep the medal, which would be devastating for Barbosu once again. And at that point, if they do not decide to award multiple bronze medals, the IOC will have to say how this situation differs from what happened in 2002.
This whole prolonged situation is a disaster and those who are suffering the most are the athletes who have done nothing wrong.
