Jordan Chiles said that she is ready to “tell my truth,” speaking on the TODAY Show in her first TV interview since a sports court moved her from bronze-medal position back to fifth place in the Olympic floor exercise final over the timing of her scoring inquiry.
Chiles is appealing, believing she should be reinstated as bronze medalist.
“I can’t control anything that’s happening on the outside,” Chiles said, adding that she still has the medal. “I can only control what my truth is, and I know what the truth is, and I know that we were right in everything that we were doing.”
On Aug. 5, Chiles won the Paris Olympic floor exercise bronze medal after a U.S. inquiry into her difficulty score led to the score being raised by one tenth. That moved her from fifth place into bronze-medal position, passing Romanians Sabrina Voinea and Ana Barbosu.
After a Romanian appeal, a Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel on Aug. 10 reverted Chiles’ score because the scoring inquiry was recorded as submitted four seconds past the one-minute time limit. Chiles was moved back to fifth place. Barbosu became the bronze medalist.
On Aug. 15, Chiles called the decision “devastating” and that it felt “unjust” in a social media post.
On Sept. 16, it was announced that Chiles appealed the court decision to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland. Rulings by CAS, which is headquartered in Switzerland, can be appealed to Swiss federal court on limited procedural grounds.
Jordan Chiles joins us live with the latest on her ongoing battle for bronze. pic.twitter.com/oQ5aEotKPL
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 11, 2024
One of the law firms representing Chiles asked the Swiss court to find the CAS decision “was procedurally deficient” for two reasons:
- CAS refused to consider video evidence found on Aug. 11 that the firm said showed the inquiry was submitted on time. (In the submitted video, Chiles’ score comes up. Her coaches briefly discuss making an inquiry. Then one of her coaches is heard (but not seen) saying “inquiry for Jordan” twice and another time saying “for Jordan” before the one-minute time limit.)
- Chiles was not properly informed that CAS panel chair Hamid Gharavi had a conflict of interest. Gharavi “has acted as counsel for Romania for almost a decade and was actively representing Romania at the time of the CAS arbitration,” according to the law firm.
“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Chiles said Monday. “Everything was very right. Everything was in the time that it needed to be, and for them to come back and say that it was four seconds late, when we’ve had proof, we’ve had everything that really can show that everything was right.”
CAS has not commented publicly on Chiles’ appeal.
“I’ll be able to overcome this, and I’ll be able to look back and say, you know what, that was just a portion of my story, but it’s the truth, and that’s why I’m here today, is to tell my truth and to tell everybody around me that everything that I did was correct, that 13.766 (score) was given to me, that bronze medal was given to me in the right way,” Chiles said.
Chiles won team gold earlier in the Games. She called the floor medal, her first individual Olympic medal, “a cherry on top.”
“I’ve never expected myself to even make a floor final,” she said. “I never expected myself to come back with a medal, none of that, but having it in the presence of knowing that I have the capability of giving my all and giving everything that I need to do as an athlete, it was just a moment. Plus, it was an all-Black podium (with gold medalist Rebeca Andrade of Brazil and silver medalist Simone Biles). That was history made. That was something I’m very proud to be a part of.”
