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In the latest turn in the continuing saga of the bronze medal in the women’s Floor Exercise at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation has made a Saturday plea on Instagram for a discussion to allow Romanians Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca Voinea and, American Jordan Chiles to all receive bronze medals for the event:
“Romanian Gymnastics Federation ( RGF ) prioritizes the mental health and the emotional stability of all three athletes Ana Maria Barbosu, Sabrina Maneca Voinea and Jordan Chiles.
“This was and remains the fundamental reason why RGF has constantly advocated for awarding three bronze medals to these three athletes affected by the procedural and technical errors that occurred during the Paris Olympic Games floor finals.
“Following the steps taken at the Swiss Federal Tribunal, RGF, through its lawyers, sent an invitation for an open dialogue to all involved parties .
“Romanian Gymnastics Federation believes that only a constructive dialogue could be the fastest and safest way to reach a joint agreement to avoid the negative impact on these amazing three athletes.”
The Romanians upped the ante on 26 August by filing an appeal of the Court of Arbitration for Sport decision that removed the bronze medal awarded to Chiles and gave it to Barbosu, who received it from the International Olympic Committee in a ceremony on 17 August in Bucharest.
In the appeal, the Romanian are essentially asking for the Swiss Federal Tribunal to overrule an established precedent that “field of play” decisions are not reviewable after-the-fact by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. To do so would create chaos and is unlikely to be enacted.
However, the Romanian appeal is likely to be joined by a U.S. appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal on procedural grounds – one of the limited areas for a reversal – in that USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee were not informed in a timely way about the action at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Paris and did not have enough time to prepare a proper presentation of their position. Indeed, USA Gymnastics produced video evidence showing that its field-of-play appeal was submitted in a timely way, not late as contended by the Federation International de Gymnastique (FIG).
The Court of Arbitration decision left no doubt about the fault in this case: it’s with the FIG, whose procedures were inadequate to deal competently with what happened.
The Romanian ask is for a discussion not with the Swiss Federal Tribunal, but with FIG, the International Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics, to see if the federation and the IOC will see clear to declaring all three gymnasts as the bronze medalists.
This is possible; the IOC has done this before, most notably in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games figure skating judging scandal, which, in the end, saw original silver-medalists Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada upgraded to share the gold medal with original winners Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia.
At present, no meetings of the IOC Executive Board are scheduled for the remainder of 2024, although a fourth-quarter meeting will no doubt be held.
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