A visibly emotional Jordan Chiles opened up Forbes on Wednesday that he was stripped of his first Olympic medal after the Romanian gymnastics team challenged the decision to change the final result. Chiles made his feelings clear ForbesPower Women's Summit, claiming the episode was “not about the medal” but “about the color of my skin”.
“The biggest thing they took away from me was realizing who I am,” Chiles told the audience. “It's not just my sport, it's who I am.”
After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, Chiles continued: “For me, everything that happened is not about the medal. It's about my skin color. It's that there were things that led me to this position as an athlete. And I felt stripped of everything.”
In 2018, Chiles similarly felt “not able to use my voice and not be heard” after an experience with a verbally and emotionally abusive coach “took a toll on my mental health,” the athlete recalled. .
“I felt like when I came back in 2018, when I lost the love for the sport, I lost it again,” Chiles said Wednesday. “I feel like I've really been left in the dark.”
Chiles was awarded a bronze medal for the first time in August after his coaches questioned his initial score, which placed him fifth. However, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation submitted an official objection to the score to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which upheld the objection and awarded the bronze medal to Romania's Ana Bǎrbosu.
“Nobody listened to the fact that there are things that are in place,” Chiles said of the arbitration process. “They wanted it to be all about the Olympics and this and that. This is a picture. But I write history and I always write history. It's something I've done legitimately,” he said. “I followed the rules. My coach followed the rules. We did everything that was absolutely right. I feel like they left this whole thing in the dark and tried to put the name 'gym' in front of it.”