Jordan Chiles went from fifth to third place during the Paris 2024 Olympics, winning bronze. Then, she was stripped of the medal. Here’s what happened.
The final days of the Olympic Games took an unexpected turn for Team USA Women’s Gymnastics. In a shocking twist, two-time Olympian, Jordan Chiles has been stripped of her bronze medal, leaving many fans confused. It’s understandable, considering that you typically hear about medals being stripped due to cheating or doping allegations. Well, not this time. Chiles was stripped of the medal after back-and-forth challenges about her scores.
Here’s what happened.
During the women’s floor exercise final event on Aug. 5, Team USA put on a strong showing — and so did several other gymnasts, including Rebecca Andrade with team Brazil and Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu, who initially seemed to have won bronze.
Barbosu was already celebrating, and many spectators and commentators also seemed to move forward with the understanding that she had medaled. But at the last minute, the scoreboard numbers were revised. Chiles’s score leapt from 13.600 to 13.766, beating out Barbosu’s 13.700 and catapulting Chiles from fifth place to third, leading to gymnastics’ first all-Black podium (Rebecca Andrade in first, Simone Biles in second, and Chiles in third). But the score change left many people wondering what just happened.
Let us explain: After the scores were released, the Team USA Gymnastics coaches submitted an inquiry to have Chiles’s score reexamined on the basis that one of the moves she’d performed actually deserved a higher difficulty score. (Here’s a refresher on how gymnastics is scored, but briefly: both the difficulty of a particular move and its execution count toward a gymnast’s overall score.)
The move in question was a split leap skill with a 1.5 turn, also referred to as a Gogean. In her original score it hadn’t been credited, per NBC. But, after further review, Chiles was given full scores for the technique — and that nudged her up into third place. While the score change was shocking to spectators — and Barbosu herself, E! reported — its well within the rules.
Per the Code of Points for USA Gymnastics, «A coach may inquire verbally about the Difficulty Score to the chief D Judge immediately following the posting of the score or before the completion of the performance of the next gymnast.
