We ask a lot of our Olympic athletes — to perform with grace and humility, to carry the Olympic spirit even as they pursue their own individual goals; to abide by the rules, and to accept their fates, however they may go, with dignity.
Jordan Chiles has exemplified all of that in these Paris Olympic Games.
Is it so much to ask the people who hold her Olympic dreams in their hands to do the same?
What is happening — and has happened — to Chiles and, by extension, Romania’s Ana Bărbosu, is a travesty of borderline technical malfeasance that has toyed with the emotions of two women who have done nothing wrong.
On Monday afternoon at Bercy Arena, Chiles finished her floor routine in the event final, scoring a 13.666, just out of reach of the 13.700 awarded to Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea and off the medal podium. Bărbosu, whose execution score was higher than her teammate’s, was awarded the bronze. Cecile Landi, Chiles’ coach, however, asked the judges to review the difficulty for one of the elements in Chiles’ floor routine. The request went ahead to the technical chair who agreed that, upon review, Chiles was not scored appropriately. Immediately her 13.666 was upped to a 13.766. She was the bronze medalist, not Bărbosu.
While Chiles sobbed in joy and Simone Biles enveloped her in a bear hug, Bărbosu cried in agony, gutted by the review that demoted her to the dreaded fourth position. It was the Olympic experience writ large, in all of its pain and glory.
Now it turns out, the U.S. failed to beat the buzzer, according to a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling revealed Saturday. Inquiries, by rule, must be filed within a minute of the conclusion of a routine. Landi asked too late — four seconds too late, according to a USA Gymnastics source. Which, hey, that’s more than fair — even in a subjective sport such as gymnastics, a deadline is a deadline.
But the trail to that result is a comedy of errors, none perpetuated by the gymnasts involved, and yet they are the only ones made to suffer.
Consider the lunacy: Chiles’ difficulty was erroneously scored and corrected only because a coach suggested the judges take a second look, but that judging mistake has since been disregarded because the Romanians realized that someone else failed to keep his or her eye on a clock, and allowed an inquiry to go forward when it shouldn’t have. The result: Chiles is back to a 13.666 (even though her difficulty should have made it a 13.766 in the first place), and the Court of Arbitration for Sport punted the whole thing, asking FIG, the international gymnastics governing body, to figure out who gets the bronze. The Romanians asked that all three gymnasts share the bronze, which seems fair, but at best requires an asterisk next to their names.
This all took five days to sort out. Five glorious days for Chiles, who already had been made to endure the rollercoaster of gymnastics rule foolishness. On the first day of competition, during the qualification round, Chiles finished fourth in the overall all-around standings. The top 24 women quality; except Chiles, while fourth overall, was third on the U.S. team, and Olympic gymnastics apparently likes to treat itself more like 4-year-old Sunday afternoon soccer, where everyone gets to participate. Each delegation can only send two women forward to the final, which meant that Chiles’ teammate, Sunisa Lee, who topped Chiles by 0.067, got the nod and Chiles did not.
Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles celebrate after Chiles’ floor routine difficulty score was changed to make her the bronze medalist. Now, that’s all in question. (Naomi Baker / Getty Images)
A devastated Chiles spent two days licking her wounds but then, in a real-time show of the Olympic spirit, returned to help the U.S. secure a team gold two days later. She later showed up to cheer on Lee and Simone Biles in the all-around, while focusing her own energies on the event final, in search of her first personal medal.
Chiles competed last in the floor final and will be the first to admit she could have hit her routine more cleanly. She was packing up her things as Landi put in the inquiry and when the announcer flashed her new score, she finally was given her moment. But Chiles instead opted to celebrate her peers and not herself. From her side of the podium, Chiles caught Biles’ eye hatching a plan, and when Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade stepped to the podium for her gold medal, Chiles and Biles bowed.
It was an extraordinary act of grace conceived by a woman who had shown nothing but grace all week. For five glorious days, Chiles felt the beautiful weight of an Olympic medal around her neck, and did the very American version of a victory lap, visiting Disneyland Paris and making the morning-show circuit. She was, as she declared herself, That Girl.
That Girl just announced she’s taking a break from social media to concentrate on her mental health. The people in charge seem to have finally done what nothing else could: douse Jordan Chiles’ Olympic spirit. Her last post: a string of broken-hearted emojis.
(Top photo of Jordan Chiles after the floor routine at the Paris Olympics: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)