- The International Olympic Committee stripped Chile of its bronze medal
- Chiles initially won bronze when her coach appealed the judges’ score.
- Barbosu will now receive the bronze medal at a new awards ceremony.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed it will re-award Jordan Chiles’ bronze medal to Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu after the sport’s highest court overturned an appeal lodged at its plenary session by Chiles’ coach.
The IOC announced early Sunday that it would reassign the bronze from last Monday’s women’s floor final to Barbosu after the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) said late Saturday it would respect the tribunal’s decision and elevate Barbosu to third place.
The decision came less than 24 hours after the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned a scoring appeal filed by U.S. team coach Cecile Landi during the competition that put Chiles on the podium.
CAS ruled Saturday that Landi’s appeal to have 0.1 points added to Chile’s score came outside the one-minute timeframe allowed by FIG. The ad hoc committee wrote that Landi’s request came one minute and four seconds after Chile’s initial score was posted.
The IOC said in a statement that it will contact the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee regarding the return of Chile’s bronze and will work with the Romanian Olympic Committee to discuss a reallocation ceremony in Barbosu’s honor.
Jordan Chiles has been forced to return the bronze medal she won in the floor final
Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu has been retrospectively awarded the bronze medal
Chiles’ bronze medal would have been her first podium finish in an individual Olympic event.
The CAS wrote on Saturday that the initial order of finish should be restored, with Barbosu in third place, Romania’s Sabrina Maneca-Voinea in fourth and the Chilean in fifth. The organisation added that the FIG should determine the final ranking “in accordance with the previous decision” but left it up to the federation to decide who would get the medal behind gold winner Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and silver medallist Simone Biles of the United States.
The FIG said it was up to the IOC to decide whether the medal should be reallocated. The IOC confirmed on Sunday that it would respect the FIG’s decision and seek the return of Chile’s medal.
Chiles hinted at the decision in an Instagram story on Saturday, saying she is heartbroken and is “taking this time and stepping away from social media for my mental health, thank you.”
Jordan’s sister, Jazmin Chiles, said on Instagram that Chiles was stripped of her medal “not because she wasn’t good enough, but because the judges didn’t give her any trouble and forced an investigation.”
USA Gymnastics said in a statement Saturday that it is “devastated” by the ruling.
“The investigation into the difficulty value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was submitted in good faith and, we believe, in accordance with FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring,” the organization wrote.
Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea missed out on medals in the floor final after finishing with equal scores of 13.700. Barbosu thought she had won bronze against Maneca-Voinea via a tiebreaker (a higher execution score) and began celebrating with a Romanian flag.
American superstar Simone Biles offered her support to Chiles in a post on social media
Barbosu has no problem with Chiles despite controversy and criticism directed at the judges
Chiles was the last athlete to compete and was initially given a score of 13.666 which placed her in fifth place, just behind Maneca-Voinea. Landi called for an investigation into Chiles’ score.
“At that point we had nothing to lose, so I was like, ‘Let’s just go for it,'” Landi said after the awards ceremony. “I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen, but when I heard her scream, I turned around and thought, ‘What?'”
The judges granted the appeal, ranking Chiles ahead of Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea.
Barbosu, after returning home to Romania, made it clear that he had no problem with Chiles.