For more than a month, debate over who finished third in the women’s floor final at the Paris Olympics has roiled the gymnastics community. On Aug. 5, Jordan Chiles received the bronze medal in Paris after her coach successfully appealed her score. Upon review, the judges increased Chiles’s mark by one-tenth, which moved her ahead of Romania’s Ana Barbosu. Nearly a week later, Chiles was stripped of her medal after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled her coach, Cecile Landi, did not initiate the decisive inquiry before the one-minute deadline. On Monday in Switzerland’s Supreme Court, Chiles filed an appeal that raised procedural issues in the CAS hearing in hopes of overturning the decision and reclaiming the medal.
The Washington Post analyzed dozens of videos to examine the disputed inquiry, including footage from fans in the arena, television broadcasts and new video evidence in Chiles’s latest appeal. The link to the video evidence was later redacted from the public filing. Chiles’s lawyers did not respond to The Post’s questions about why it was redacted.
The Post’s review shows CAS ruled against Chiles based on time markers that don’t precisely match the sport’s protocol for inquiries. For the last gymnast in the rotation, the rule states a coach must verbally initiate an inquiry within one minute of the score being shown in the arena. The new video evidence, filmed by Religion of Sports, the documentary crew that followed Chiles’s teammate Simone Biles in Paris, captured audio of Landi asking for the inquiry within that minute.
As the last competitor in the floor final, Chiles finished her routine at 3:29 p.m. Rebeca Andrade of Brazil had the best score (14.166) with Biles just behind (14.133). Two Romanians, Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, had earned scores of 13.700, but Barbosu was in third place because the tiebreaker gives an edge to the gymnast with the higher execution score.
Chiles initially earned a 13.666, putting her in fifth place. Omega, the official timekeeper at the Olympics, recorded the timestamp of 3:32:17 p.m. as the “Official Score Time.” That time reflects when the head judge released Chiles’s final score, said Alain Zobrist, CEO of Swiss Timing for Omega, in a statement to The Post. CAS used this as the beginning time to determine the inquiry into Chiles’s score was made after the deadline.
The head judge submitting the score triggers the start of an animation on the large video board in the arena, Zobrist said. This animation does not instantaneously reveal a gymnast’s score.
The Post synchronized different footage of Chiles’s score being revealed in the arena, using metadata as well as visual and audio cues, to calculate the timestamps below. They are based on the sport’s rule: For the final athlete in a rotation, the time limit for a coach’s verbal notification of an inquiry is one minute “after the score is shown on the scoreboard.”
0:00 | Video board reveals Chiles’s score
(Video: Marco Albuquerque)
Chiles’s initial score appears on the video board at 3:32:20, three seconds after the “Official Score Time,” according to The Post’s analysis of video from the competition.
0:43 | Chiles’s coaches decide to submit an inquiry
(Video: Jordan Chiles Appeal Before the Swiss Supreme Court)
Chiles’s difficulty score (5.8) was one-tenth shy of her maximum mark because she did not receive credit for a leaping element she had performed. Coaches can challenge a gymnast’s difficulty score, as well as time-related and out-of-bounds deductions.
The video’s audio submitted in the filing by Chiles’s attorneys recorded coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi speaking with Chiles and Biles.
Cecile says, “They didn’t send it,” presumably a reference to a potential inquiry into Biles’s score. Then she adds: “What about Jordan? You want to try? [It’s] 5.8.”
At 3:33:03 p.m., 43 seconds after Chiles’s score appears on the screen, Laurent replies in French, “Go ahead; do it.”
00:46 | Chiles’s coach requests an inquiry
(Video: Jordan Chiles Appeal Before the Swiss Supreme Court)
Three seconds after the conversation with Laurent and 46 seconds after the score is posted in the arena, Cecile says in English, “Inquiry for Jordan.” The video submitted with Chiles’s filing includes audio of Cecile’s request but not video footage that shows Cecile at this moment. She had just left the broadcast frame that showed Chiles, and it’s unclear how close she was to the official recording the inquiry. The filing describes the inquiry table as being a few meters away from where the athletes were seated, which the videos corroborate.
00:54 | Chiles’s coach repeats inquiry request
Eight seconds after her first request and 54 seconds after the score posted in the arena, Cecile repeats the request for inquiry. Cecile says, “Inquiry for Jordan.” Three seconds later, at 3:33:17 p.m., she adds: “For Jordan.”
01:01 | Official presses button to register inquiry
An official logs Cecile’s inquiry in Omega’s system at 3:33:21 — 1 minute 4 seconds after Omega recorded Chiles’s original score and 1 minute 1 second after the score appeared on the video board. According to The Post’s visual analysis, this happened 15 seconds after Cecile’s first statement requesting the inquiry and seven seconds after her second.
The filing includes video of Cecile walking away from the official but does not show her there during the initial request. After an inquiry request is made, coaches have additional time to provide more information. Cecile returns to the official and responds to a question by saying in French, “5.9,” a reference to the score she believed Chiles should have been awarded.
The Post’s analysis shows CAS relied on timestamps that measured the time between when Chiles’s score was officially logged and when the inquiry was officially recorded. This time frame differs slightly from the one outlined in the rule, which describes the one-minute window beginning when the score is posted in the arena.
01:59 | Chiles celebrates
1 minute 59 seconds after her initial score appeared in the arena, Chiles celebrated with Cecile after seeing her score was adjusted, moving her into third place. Chiles joined Andrade and Biles on a historic all-Black podium.
Aftermath
The next day, the Romanians appealed the change to Chiles’s score, and CAS convened a hearing on the matter Aug. 10. A subsequent report explaining the arguments made in the hearing does not mention U.S. officials referencing any of these technicalities about how the Omega timestamps do not directly mirror the period of time specified by the rule.
At the CAS hearing, USA Gymnastics did not dispute the timekeeping report and did not ask for more time to prove the inquiry had been made in time, according to the report. Cecile Landi testified that the official recorded her request “immediately.” However, Chiles’s attorneys said “Chiles directly and repeatedly disputed that issue at the arbitration hearing.” The CAS report does not mention Chiles objecting at the hearing.
Chiles’s appeal asks Switzerland’s Supreme Court to overturn the CAS decision because of procedural issues, including the court’s failure to notify U.S. officials of Romania’s appeal until the day before the hearing. That delay gave USA Gymnastics little time to prepare and gather evidence. The day after the hearing, USA Gymnastics said in a statement it had new evidence, presumably this footage from Biles’s documentary crew, but CAS would not reconsider its ruling. It’s not clear whether Chiles still has the medal, but she is no longer officially considered the bronze medalist.
