Jordan Chiles isn’t done trying to get her bronze medal back from the Paris Olympics.
The American gymnast filed a formal appeal with the Swiss Federal Tribunal on Monday in an attempt to overturn an earlier ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that took away the bronze medal she won in the individual floor exercise in Paris earlier this summer, according to The Athletic.
Chiles’ attorneys argued that the CAS decision violated her “right to be heard,” and called the move “procedurally deficient.” They said that the CAS refused to consider video evidence that showed Chiles’ inquiry was submitted on time, and that Chiles wasn’t properly informed that the president of the CAS panel who made the decision had “a serious conflict of interest” because he had served as legal counsel to Romania. Ana Bǎrbosu, who was awarded the bronze medal in the end, is Romanian.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee also filed a letter in support of the appeal to the court, which is the highest in Switzerland. USA Gymnastics is planning to follow suit in order to receive “justice for Jordan.”
“We made a collective, strategic decision to have Jordan lead the initial filing,” USA Gymnastics said, via The Athletic.
Chiles initially finished fifth in the floor routine final at the Paris Olympics earlier this summer, but she was awarded the bronze medal after a score adjustment — which came after her coach filed an appeal to the judgment of her routine. It was determined that she wasn’t awarded full credit for a skill, and her score was bumped up from 13.666 to 13.766. That moved her up two spots and into third.
The CAS, however, later determined that the appeal came four seconds late. That sparked this long battle — USA Gymnastics has said it submitted the inquiry with 13 seconds to spare, and that it didn’t have enough time to properly make its case — and Chiles’ appeal to the CAS was officially denied in August.
“The biggest thing that was taken from me was, it was the recognition of who I was,” Chiles said earlier this month. “Not just my sport, but the person I am.
“It’s not about the medal. It’s about my skin color. It’s about the fact there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete. And I felt like everything has been stripped. I felt like when I was back in 2018 where I did lose the love of the sport, I lost it again.”
