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Kelly Rissman
US News Reporter
Simone Biles’ Netflix documentary series could be the key to getting Jordan Chiles her bronze medal back.
Team USA’s women’s gymnastics team won a total of 10 medals from the 2024 Paris Olympics but brought home only nine after Chiles, 23, was stripped of her bronze medal from the women’s floor final on August 5.
During the competition, the young gymnast was last to go, receiving a score of 13.666, which landed her in fifth place behind Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea from Romania. However, Chiles’s coach, Cecile Landi, submitted an inquiry, arguing her score didn’t reflect the credit it should have received for her tour jeté full. After further review, Chiles’s score was increased by 0.1, moving her placement from fifth to third.
The Romanian Gymnastics Federation later submitted an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. An investigation was launched, leading the CAS to determine Landi had submitted her inquiry four seconds past the appropriate one-minute window. The International Olympic Committee then ordered Chiles to return her medal and announced Barbosu as the new bronze medalist from the women’s floor event.
This week, Chiles filed her own appeal to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, where CAS is based, arguing she and her team had video evidence that proved Landi had submitted the inquiry in the allowed time frame. The footage they submitted was included in Simone Biles Rising.
Biles, who is considered by some to be “the greatest athlete of all time,” released a special multi-part documentary with Netflix back in late July. The first two episodes took viewers through the gymnast’s journey from her harrowing Tokyo 2020 Olympics experience to the start of her comeback journey ahead of this year’s games with the promise of full Paris coverage to come.
Now, Biles’ footage, produced by Religion of Sports and directed by Katie Walsh, could be the key evidence that gets Chiles’ bronze medal back.
The video, submitted by Chiles’s counsel, is said to prove Landi’s inquiry came 49 seconds after her result. Additionally, the footage supposedly shows Landi and Chiles embracing each other 15 seconds after her score.
According to a press release obtained by CBS Sports, Chile’s attorney, Maurice M Suh, said: “Jordan Chiles’ appeals present the international community with an easy legal question—will everyone stand by while an Olympic athlete who has done only the right thing is stripped of her medal because of fundamental unfairness in an ad-hoc arbitration process?
“The answer to that question should be no,” he continued. “Every part of the Olympics, including the arbitration process, should stand for fair play.”
Chiles’s counsel believes her “fundamental ‘right to be heard’” was violated by CAS since they originally refused to review the footage that allegedly shows Landi’s inquiry was voiced on time.
The Independent has contacted CAS for a comment.
