Jordan Chiles sobs on stage over losing Olympic medal: ‘It’s about my skin color’

American gymnast Jordan Chiles couldn’t hold back tears in her first interview about the retraction of her Olympic medal.

The 23-year-old Olympian, nicknamed “Chick,” was embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of the Paris Games when she won bronze in the women’s floor exercise final after American coaches asked officials to review a score.

Romania’s Ana Barbosu initially finished with a higher score than Chiles once the American finished her routine, then judges reviewed the footage, changed the score and bumped Chiles up to third place, sparking the initial controversy and fierce backlash from Romanians.

Then, on the last day of the Olympics, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that the Chiles appeal was submitted past the one-minute deadline, and changed her score to drop her back into fifth place. The next day, on Aug. 11, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) determined that Chiles must return the medal.

Chiles gave her first sit-down interview about the incident this week during a panel at the Forbes Power Women Summit 2024 on Wednesday. The gymnast sobbed noticeably when she was asked about the topic.

Jordan Chiles ahead of the apparatus floor final at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 5, 2024. Getty Images© Getty Images

“To me, everything that has gone on is not about the medal, it’s about, you know, my skin color,” Chiles said.

Chiles previously claimed she was facing “racially driven attacks” from social media users in a statement posted to X on Aug. 15. When Chiles won the bronze medal, it resulted in the first gymnastics podium in Olympic history that featured three black contestants.

“It’s about the fact that there were things that have led up to this position of being an athlete and I felt like everything has been stripped.”

Chiles then compared the incident to a chapter of her career from 2018, when she had just completed high school and made her senior international debut and advanced toward her goal of competing at the Tokyo Olympics. But despite the success, Chiles admitted that she “lost the love of the sport” that year due to an abusive coach, who she did not name.

“I felt like back in 2018 when I did lose the love of the sport. I’ve lost it again. I just did felt like there wasn’t a lot of people supporting me who I thought could support me in that situation. I felt like I was really left in the dark,” she said.

“I was in a situation of dealing with the coach, who emotionally and verbally abused me. I didn’t have the ability to use my voice or be heard,” Chiles said.

Chiles previously spoke out about the unnamed abusive coach during an episode of “Peace of Mind with Taraji” on Facebook Watch in November 2021. Chiles said her previous coach would “call me fat. She said I looked like a donut,” and constantly criticized what she ate. In 2019, Chiles switched trainers to train in Texas at the World Gymnastics Centre, which is owned by the family of Simone Biles.

But now, as she still reels from the loss of her Olympic bronze, which she has not returned despite being ordered to by the IOC, Chiles says the medal is rightfully hers.

“I made history and I will always continue to make history, it’s something I rightfully did, I followed the rules, my coach followed the rules, we did everything that was totally and completely right,” Chiles said.

After the end of the Olympics in August, USA Today reported that Chiles and the rest of the U.S. Olympic team had “no intention” of returning the medal, and are continuing to appeal the IOC’s decision.

Biles told People later that month that she has joined the effort to appeal the decision and re-assert Chiles as the third-place finisher.

Jordan Chiles is congratulated by teammate Simone Biles after dramatically claiming the bronze medal on a score change after the women’s floor final at the Olympic Games on Aug. 5, 2024, in Paris. Getty Images© Mehmet Murat Onel/Anadolu via Getty Images

“Do we think they did the correct procedures to come to this ruling? No,” Biles said. “That’s really why we want that justice for Jordan and why we’re going to keep supporting her and uplifting her.”

The controversy has brought international scrutiny upon the judges who scored the event. The Center of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) released a joint statement on Aug. 15 condemning the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the judging crew for the outcome.

“If the FIG had put such a mechanism or arrangement in place, a great deal of heartache would have been avoided,” the CAS’ ad-hoc panel said in a release. “The Panel expresses the hope that the FIG will draw the consequences of this case, in relation to these three extraordinary Athletes and also for other Athletes and their supporting personnel, in the future, so that this never happens again.”