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The 2024 Olympics, which ended Sunday in Paris, showcased breath-taking athletic feats and countless moments of good sportsmanship. But, unfortunately, the conclusion of the games was marred by ongoing controversy involving the scoring for a women’s gymnastics event.
In last Monday’s floor exercises, American Jordan Chiles competed last and her initial score landed her in fifth place. However, an inquiry from an American coach was granted because the judges had failed to give Chiles credit for a difficult move. With the added points, Chiles was vaulted into third place, ahead of two Romanian gymnasts, and awarded the bronze medal.
Brazilian Rebeca Andrade won the gold medal and American Simone Biles won silver.
Representatives from the Romanian team appealed the Olympic gymnastics judges’ decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The court over the weekend ruled that the American inquiry was filed four seconds after the required one-minute window. After the court ruling, the International Olympic Committee on Sunday said the bronze medal would go to Romanian Ana Barbosu.
The committee said that Chiles would be asked to return her bronze medal, which doesn’t seem to us to fit with the Olympic spirit. Chiles would be the first Olympic athlete to have a medal retroactively taken away because of a judging error. Other medals have been taken away primarily because athletes failed drug tests.
The Americans appealed the court ruling, providing new video evidence that its inquiries about the scores were filed within the required one-minute time frame.
Yet, late Monday, USA Gymnastics said the arbitration court would not reconsider its decision or the new information. USA Gymnastics said it would continue to pursue an appeal via the Swiss Federal Tribunal (both the International Olympic Committee and Court of Arbitration for Sport are headquartered in Switzerland) and other avenues.
It should also be noted that another Romanian gymnast, Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, finished with the same score as Barbosu. But, because she had a lower execution score, she was placed behind Barbosu. Maneca-Voinea was given a deduction for going out of bounds. An appeal from her coach was denied during the event last Monday. Later video evidence showed that Maneca-Voinea had not gone fully out of bounds.
The Romanian Olympic Committee said it had sent a letter of protest to the International Gymnastics Federation asking it to reconsider Maneca-Voinea’s score.
The judges’ errors, and the uncertainty and anger they have unleashed, have harmed the gymnasts, the sport and the Olympics. Amid all of this frustration, some misplaced and counterproductive anger has unfortunately been directed at the athletes themselves. That must stop.
Sadly, but predictably, some of the anger directed at Chiles, who is Black and Latina, had racist overtones, which is reprehensible.
Regardless of how this situation is resolved, it is the gymnastics judges who made mistakes in their scoring last week. Any frustration should be directed at them, not the gymnasts who turned in stunning floor routines in Paris.
As Vox aptly put it: “It’s worth remembering that the fundamental flaw in Chiles’s score is a judge’s error, an error that judges admitted to. Chiles’s correct score is Chiles’s correct score. Gymnastics isn’t track and field and scores aren’t determined by clock, but there are set criteria — including the execution of included moves — that need to be evaluated in a final score.
“Arguing that it took four seconds too long to fix an error that the judges themselves actually introduced feels more at home in some kind of retail customer service death spiral than an allegedly prestigious Olympic sport where judges and official timekeepers should be able to follow the predetermined protocol,” Vox said.
This fiasco created by the Olympic judges could take months or even years to be resolved. In the meantime, all three gymnasts should be celebrated for their hard work and stunning performances.
