Aly Raisman has Jordan Chiles' back.
The former Olympic gymnast, who competed at the London and Rio Games in 2012 and 2016, has addressed the biggest controversy to come out of this year's Paris Olympics.
"I am so devastated for her," Raisman told Us Weekly of Chiles. "I hope that things change and she gets to keep her medal because it’s not right. It’s so disappointing to me because I feel like it goes against the integrity of the sport and of the Olympics."
Chiles made headlines in the past few weeks after she was stripped of her bronze medal in the women's floor final.
The gymnast was awarded the medal in Paris after her coach Cecile Landi filed an inquiry into her score, arguing that Chiles had not deserved a particular point deduction. The inquiry was accepted, and the athlete's score was bumped up from 13.666 to 13.766, which put her in third place, passing Romanian gymnasts Ana Barbosu (who initially came third) and Sabrina Manexa-Voinea (who initially came fourth).
But after the fact, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which argued that Coach Landi's inquiry had not been submitted in the requisite one-minute time frame.
CAS eventually ruled in the Romanian gymnasts' favor. USA Gymnastics then shared that they had submitted "video evidence" to CAS that proved the inquiry had in fact been made within the one-minute requirement, but later explained that the organization had declined to consider this new evidence.
"USA Gymnastics was notified by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday that their rules do not allow for an arbitral award to be reconsidered even when conclusive new evidence is presented," the American organization wrote on Instagram.
But Raisman, like Chiles' fellow Team USA Olympians and gymnastics fans, fundamentally disagrees with the way things unfolded.
"Jordan deserves answers as to what evidence the Court of Arbitration for Sport has," the former gymnast said. "It’s very confusing to me. It makes no sense. I don’t think Jordan should give her medal back."
On Aug. 16, Ana Barbosu was awarded the bronze medal in a special ceremony in Bucharest.
Raisman explained that, from her perspective, there should not have been any doubt to begin with as to whether or not Coach Landi's inquiry had been made in time.
"There’s a designated trained official. It’s their job to keep the time," she said. "They are not allowed to accept the inquiry if it’s not under that minute window. They accepted the inquiry, which means that the person who’s trained to do that, they saw it was under a minute."
And though Chiles originally finished in fifth, nobody has disputed that the score she deserved was the bronze-medal score she eventually got. "From there, the judges admitted they made a mistake with the score and raised the score," Raisman said. "I think it’s really unfair. It’s unacceptable to me."
Chiles' teammates Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee have also publicly expressed their disappointment over the situation.
